In the Birdcage
by Raberba girl
Summary: Prequel to tbws
1. Part 1

In the Birdcage

(rough draft)

A Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Summary: Prequel to _The Birds Who Smile_.

 **Warnings: Child abuse throughout the fic; occasional strong language.**

 **Also, since this is being written after I'm over 20 chapters into** _ **The Birds Who Smile**_ **, there will be some inconsistencies between the two stories that I won't be able to fix for a long time, if ever.**

 **The short version: I'm revamping this fic so that most of the scenes where the Batman Who Laughs is onscreen will be written in Synopsis Mode rather than real time. See the author's notes at the end of this chapter for a full explanation.**

I: The Boy Who Chirps - Chapter 1 (censored version)

He felt numb. Even though the broken bodies had been covered up, he could still see them in his mind. He could do nothing but look at those bodies as someone put a blanket around his shoulders and sat him down, as people came and talked to him and went away again, as a policeman gently tugged him to his feet and led him to the back seat of a police car.

Dick rested his face against the window and closed his eyes, still seeing those bodies. He dimly registered a horrible smell somewhere nearby, but couldn't bring himself to care. The car dipped slightly as the man got into the driver's seat, then the engine started and they drove away.

The boy's lips finally moved, and belatedly, he realized why. "I want..." He'd already...he'd already lost his family. He didn't want to be taken away from the rest of his world as well, from the other people who loved him.

The man spoke before he could say any of this. "Do you want to hear a joke?"

Dick stared. "...My parents just died."

" _My_ parents died, too. Isn't that a funny coincidence!"

Goosebumps were starting to form on Dick's flesh. Something about this man was not right. He turned to the other police officer, the heavily shadowed one who'd been sitting silent and unmoving in the passenger seat all this time, but he didn't have a chance to get his attention before the driver spoke again.

"Anyway, here's the joke: how does a circus leave an unforgettable impression on its final night in Gotham City?"

"Please-" The sound of explosions behind them made Dick nearly jerk out of his seat. He whipped around and stared out the back windshield in horror as the Big Top slowly sank into a sea of flames. "NO!"

He tried to throw himself out of the car, but it was designed so that prisoners couldn't open the doors from the inside. "Let me out! Let me out, don't you see what just happened?! My _people_ are back there! My...my family...!" The only family he had left. Because his blood family was dead. "LET ME OUT!" Dick tried to scream, but he couldn't seem to get enough air. His parents were dead, and now the rest of the people he'd known all his life were dying, too; burning alive, screaming in terror and agony- "LET ME OUT...!"

He didn't know how long he fought, but had to give up when his hands were bruised and aching from unsuccessfully trying to break out of the car. "Please," he begged. "Please, let me go. Where are you taking me? I haven't done anything wrong, you can't arrest me!"

"Of course I can't arrest you," the driver laughed. "Only law enforcement officers can do that~"

"But...you're..."

"My buddy here could. If he was, y'know, still alive." The driver shook his companion's shoulder in a friendly way, and Dick started screaming again when the corpse of the officer whose uniform and car the kidnapper had stolen slumped down into the meager light with a plop. "Oi, kid, shut up."

"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!"

Miraculously, the car pulled to the side of the road and stopped. But the fake police officer was getting out and coming around to the back, Dick still couldn't get out, when he opened the door he'd block the escape route but it was still Dick's only chance; if he was _very_ quick, maybe he could-

 _BWL catches him and starts choking him, talking to him in a partly-joking, partly-threatening tone like he's an animal and ordering him to be quiet._

 _Dick agrees to be quiet when he's released, but BWL doesn't believe him, so he's stripped naked, bound, and gagged with his own clothes, pushed to the floor of the car so he can't signal to other drivers for help._

 _Physical description of BWL:_ His skin looked wrong, like it wasn't quite a human color beneath all the foundation he'd caked on; the bits of hair peeking out from under his hat looked almost green, and there was...something wrong with his mouth. The lips were too red, the tongue too long, the teeth too sharp. His eyes were the worst: blue, but burning with such malice and madness that they looked almost like dark pits.

"Hmmm. See, I _want_ to believe you, but I don't like your eyes. You're a tricky little bird, I think. Just how I like 'em. You'll be fun to break. But I can't have you trying to get the attention of other people on the road, now, can I?"

Dick wept with the humiliation and the pain of it, until his nose started to clog from all the tears and it got hard to breathe, and with his mouth bound, he realized he could suffocate to death if he kept crying. So he tried his best to stop. He couldn't think about his lost family, or how emotionally and physically miserable he was; the only safe thing to think about was how intensely he hated the man who was tormenting him.

 _They arrive at the manor. Dick is dragged out of the car, hit a few times to take the fight out of him, and ungagged; his legs are released._

"Listen, Dickie, I'm going to take the gag off now. I own this manor, so there is _no one_ within miles of us except for my son, and trust me, he's not going to help you. If you scream, no one will hear, no one will rescue you, but I _will_ get annoyed, and now that there's no one around to see but Damian, I will beat your ass off. Do you understand?" There was a pause. " _Do you understand_?" he demanded, and struck Dick again.

Fresh tears trickled down the boy's face, and he nodded.

"Good. I'm taking the gag off now."

At long last, Dick's mouth was free. First he sucked in air, and choked; he was still fighting for breath as his kidnapper grabbed his still-bound arms and marched him into the house.

It looked like a grand, elegant mansion, but it was dusty and messy. Dick's bare feet tracked across sticky patches and barely skirted small, scattered items that looked like they'd be painful to step on. There were occasional bugs crawling across the floor, and tiny animal droppings littering the edges.

The man finally shoved him into a large room filled with expensive but damaged furniture, empty and broken picture frames, vases with dead flowers, and heaps of dirty dishware and discarded packaging piled on all the flat surfaces and the floor. There was a _boy_ in there, a little older than Dick, lounging on the couch and throwing daggers at a poster of Superman.

Dick couldn't help tugging against his captor's grip and crying out, "H-Help! H...Help me...!"

The boy shifted to look at him, frowning. His skin was paper-white, his mouth red and sharp, his eyes hollow. His figure was small and gaunt, but covered with painfully defined muscle. "What's that, Father?"

"I brought him for you, Damian," the man said proudly. "You said you were bored because Superboy's not around for you to play with anymore."

The boy sat up and sneered. "And you thought my interest would be piqued by some common gutter trash? I don't want just _any_ old toy, I want another _Kryptonian_! Humans are far too easy to break."

Dick was weeping again, hopelessly, realizing that the man had been right and he would receive no help from this 'Damian' boy.

"Well, you'll have to make do with whatever metas you can scrounge up, because all the Kryptonians are dead now," the man huffed.

"Hmmm, I suppose I could use him as a practice dummy," Damian mused, eyeing Dick's body like he would a slab of meat.

"Please let me go," Dick sobbed. "Please, please, please let me go...!"

"After all the trouble I went through to get him, you'd just kill him on Day 1?" the man said indignantly to his son, acting as if Dick hadn't even spoken. "I had to blow up a whole circus to get away with this, you know."

Dick screamed in despair. His captor struck him hard again; he hung his head and tried to cry more quietly.

"You _had_ to, or you just wanted to?" Damian scoffed.

The man's mouth stretched in a wide, shark-like smile. "Seemed like more fun that way."

"Why are you doing this?" Dick wailed softly. "Why are you...doing this...?"

"I think I'll keep him for myself, actually. I've always loved children. Ooohh, now I'm getting ideas... Watch him for a minute." He tied Dick to a heavy table leg and then left the room.

Dick sniffled and tried to get his voice under control. "D...Damian?" he finally managed.

The boy whirled and hurled a dagger at him, and Dick screamed when it sliced a gash in his arm. "Do not speak to me, cur," the boy snarled, "unless I address you first. Or I'll aim the next blade closer to your heart."

Dick curled into a tight ball to protect himself, tucking his head. He was going to die here. Everyone he loved was dead, no one had seen him be taken, no one would know where to find him or even to look for him. _'Help me!'_ he screamed in his thoughts. _'Someone help me! Mom, Dad, I want you back, please come back, come back, come back, come back...!'_

 _BWL comes back, releases Dick, hits him for 'mouthing off' to his son, then bandages the injury with a piece torn off the shirt Dick had been tied with. He fastens a thick leather collar around the boy's neck._

"I don't think you get it," he said conversationally, now attaching a long chain to the collar. "You're my pet now. You are on the same level as a dog or a cat or a bird, maybe a ferret. And _pets don't talk_. When you tell a dog to 'Speak,' it doesn't _actually_ speak, right? It barks, because it's not a human being, it's an animal. Even the STUPIDEST PERSON IN THE WORLD should be able to understand that."

 _After more threats and abuse, Dick doesn't dare speak again._

The demonic man yanked on the leash until Dick staggered to his feet.

"Let's go, Fido. Or maybe Fluffy or Twitterina or Mr. Bushytail, I haven't decided yet."

Dick shuffled miserably after his captor, feeling so alone that it was like a physical pain, just as bad as all the aches and twinges and stinging and throbs from the abuse. When the man finally stopped in the mud room and ordered him to crawl into the dog crate that was there, Dick hesitated only a moment before obeying. What other choice did he have?

The cage smelled like the animal that had once occupied it, and was lined with clumps of fur-filled dust bunnies. There were two filthy bowls in the cage, engraved with the name 'Titus' and crusted with dirt, insect activity, and traces of ancient dog food, and the floor was lined with an equally filthy towel. Dick tried not to touch it with anything other than the soles of his feet, not daring to push it out of the way with his cruel captor watching.

"Gotta take care of my new pet, now, don't I?" the man said, drawing out the bowls before shutting the cage door and fastening a heavy lock on it. Then he went away.

Dick crouched there, naked and shivering and hurting, and wondered if he was having a nightmare. He hoped to God he was having a nightmare. He spent a few minutes desperately imagining his mother shaking him awake, until the man came back with the bowls. They were now filled with dog food and water, but had not been cleaned.

"Good thing I didn't throw out the rest of the kibble when when Damian finished playing with Titus," the man said, unlocking the cage long enough to slide the bowls back inside. "There we go! All settled. Be good now, okay? Daddy's had a long day, and I have to concentrate very hard on my work tonight, so no barking or whining! Or I'll have to come spank you with a rolled-up newspaper." He laughed. "Or something more effective than a newspaper. You understand, Fido? Speak!"

Dick opened his mouth to beg again, but at the very last second, he realized this was another sick test. He managed to make a strangled attempt at a bark instead.

The man burst into laughter. "Good, very good, maybe you're not as dumb as you look!" He stroked his chin in a thoughtful way. "That didn't sound _anything_ like a dog, though. Maybe you're not a Fido after all. I'll give it some more thought later; for now, to the Batcave!"

This time when he went away, he turned out the lights, leaving his prisoner in complete darkness. Dick shoved the stiff, dirty towel and the bowls as far away from him as he could, then huddled at the back of the cage and wept.

 _To be continued..._

A/N: Okay, so here's the deal: Writing this fic makes me feel gross and I can't stomach being in BWL's revolting headspace anymore, and it's also bothering me that this story does absolutely nothing to make the world a better place. And BWL is horrible enough, he does not need so many opportunities to come up with _even more_ spontaneous nastiness while I'm drafting.

So from Part 4 onwards, I'm going to try summarizing most of the parts where BWL is onscreen, and I've fixed these first three chapters to reflect that as well (though they're not as summarized as the rest of the story will be, because I did already write them). Hopefully, the added bit of distance will make this fic less unpleasant and a little more worthwhile to work on. I know a lot of people want to see how the birds interacted with each other before their rescue.

(From the previously-posted full version:)

Writing this story kind of makes me feel ugly. I think it's because when I write, I have to slip into each character's head for every word and action in order to know what they'll do and say (which is why it's so hard to write characters I don't know well), and the Batman Who Laughs has a really ugly mind. I've written from an abuser's perspective before, but I never felt like this with _Carried Off_ because, despite all the horrible things Astrid does to Hiccup in that fic, she never actually _intends_ to abuse him. (Also, for all his inability to escape, at least he's an adult dealing with a peer and figures out a way to fight back, even if he's only defending a small piece of figurative territory rather than gaining ground.) Her treatment of him stems entirely from fear, anger, and ignorance. BWL, though, is sadistic, he knows exactly what he's doing, he _wants_ his victims to suffer, and it's sickening, especially because they're children and I know it's going to be a very long time before they're rescued. It makes it even worse to know that millions of children in real life suffer at the hands of monstrous human beings, too. There are some kinds or levels of abuse I just can't bear to write under any circumstances, so this fic will actually be tame compared to what I know some people have experienced. I've read accounts from real victims that make me want to scream with outrage that anyone could even _conceive_ of doing such barbaric things to any living creature, much less a child.


	2. Part 2

_**In the Birdcage**_ **, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **I: The Boy Who Chirps - Chapter 2 (rough draft; censored version)**

It was so cold. Dick tried at first to take his mind off the cold and the pain and the dark and the loneliness by imagining good things, but it didn't really work. At last, when he couldn't stand it anymore, he reached for the towel.

It wasn't warm at all, but the feel of something covering him helped a tiny bit. He was hungry, too, and thirsty, but not enough for the contents of those disgusting bowls to be tempting. The metal of the cage bit into him at first, but gradually warmed when he stopped pulling away from it.

Since his eyes had adjusted, the initial blackness was now a dim landscape, illuminated by moonlight from the windows. He could see a jumble of shoes against one wall and a pile of coats which he longed to wrap around himself, but they were far out of his reach. Muddy footprints made dark shapes on the floor, and blades were mixed with the broken umbrellas in the umbrella stand. There was a pile of rotting logs in a firewood rack in one corner, and Dick could hear the occasional sound of owls in the night.

There were a couple of dog toys in the cage with him, a deflated ball and a thick, half-chewed piece of rope shaped like a bone. _'The dog who lived in this thing before me,'_ he thought dully. _'I think they killed him.'_ His name had been Titus. The bowls said 'Titus' on them, and the cage was very big. Titus must have been a big dog.

There was a rustling from behind him, and now here was the dog stepping into sight, though he kind of looked like a tiger, like the tiger that had almost bitten Dick when he'd been very small and tried to pet it without permission. Titus stuck his furry head right through the bars and picked up the ball in his mouth, but then he saw the boy in his house and he growled. Dick was terrified; he pushed right through the bars, too, but now the tiger - the dog - was chasing him, snarling and barking through the huge dark house as sharp things bit into his feet and someone laughed and laughed as Dick choked, the evil man loomed up in front of him to cut him open but then Zitka's trunk came curling around his waist and tugged him into a closet and shut the door.

Except it wasn't a closet, it was like in _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_ where there was a whole country on the other side, a pretty place with sunlight and grass and flowers, and actually it wasn't Zitka, it was Grandpa who held Dick close and kissed the top of his head. _"My dear boy."_ Dick lay down in the warm sunlight with his head on Grandpa's lap so that he could stroke Dick's hair. Titus came up - he was a happy, tail-waggy dog now, not the tiger monster from before - and lay down beside Dick and it was so, so warm. Everything was okay.

 _"You poor child, I'm so sorry-"_

Dick gasped. It was cold and dark and he'd been dozing under the filthy towel with the his back pressed against the metal bars of the cage, and he burst into tears again because Grandpa and Titus weren't real but hell was.

Why had he dreamed about a grandfather, anyway? His mother's parents had disowned her when she'd run away with the circus, so Dick had never met them, and his father's parents had died before Dick was old enough to remember people. But Grandpa had seemed so _real_ , with his kind face and gentle hands and black-and-white suit like a butler from a movie, Dick could almost, _almost_ feel those hands still resting protectively on his hair. "Mama, come back," Dick whispered brokenly. His fingers and toes were so numb he could barely feel them. "Daddy, come back..." _'I'll catch you this time, I won't let you fall if you just please, please come back...'_

o.o.o.o.o

It hurt to stay in one position for too long, but it also hurt to move. His knees ached, but he was too cold to uncurl, and every time he shifted, the metal took an agonizingly long time to get warm against his skin. His throat hurt, his arm hurt, the bruises hurt, the collar itched and bit, his mouth was so dry and gross but there was nothing to drink except that water he refused to touch. He itched like there were bugs crawling on him. He had to pee, but there was nowhere to pee.

 _'Mama...Daddy...'_

The dark became not so dark, more and more, until at last bright rays of sunlight began to pierce through the windows. It still took a long, long time to warm up enough for Dick to finally be able to discard the towel. He had to pee _so bad_ , finally he did it through the bars of the cage because the couldn't hold it anymore and didn't want to do it _in_ the cage. He was so thirsty, and his stomach growled. He eyed the water again, but the black specks floating in it and the dark swirls across the surface almost made him gag.

He hadn't heard a sound from the rest of the house.

o.o.o.o.o

Dick was going crazy. He'd never been ALONE for so long before, the silence was driving him _crazy_. Still no sound from the house, all he could hear was birdsong through the windows. He'd started talking to people who weren't there, silently at first because it hurt to talk out loud, but then with his voice, even though it hurt, because he _needed to hear a voice_.

"I bet you're a good cook. You look like you'd be a good cook." He was talking to Grandpa, because it hurt too much, in a different way, to talk to parents who never answered back because they weren't there. It didn't hurt as much that Grandpa didn't answer back; it still felt, weirdly, like the old man from his dream was at least listening. "What do you make for hungry kids? Do you make blueberry pancakes? I like blueberry pancakes. Mom puts smiley faces on them when I ask; can you put a smiley face on mine, too?"

There was a distant thump from the depths of the house. Dick froze, listening intently. After a pause, there was another distant noise, then another pause, then the sound of approaching footsteps.

Dick's breath was coming fast. His first instinct was to call out, but whoever was coming was almost certainly someone who hated him. If it was Damian, he'd probably ignore Dick; if it was the kidnapper, he'd probably come in here to hurt Dick but also maybe, _maybe_ feed him. And certainly talk to him. Dick was almost desperate enough for even _his_ voice.

He waited, his senses on high alert, until he heard the footsteps serve to the side, where the kitchen was. The person was banging around in there, making unintelligible grumbling noises.

Dick waited and waited, listening for all he was worth. Then the footsteps...retreated.

A desperate, wordless sound tore itself out of Dick's throat. _'Don't leave me!'_ He caught himself. _'No, no, don't hurt me, stay away, let me out of this cage and let me go_ _home_ _...!'_

The footsteps didn't even pause. They continued on until they completely faded.

Dick crouched there, his mouth open in shock. "...LET ME OUT!" he screamed. Nothing happened. His chest felt tight, and he started to cry again until it occurred to him that he was losing precious water. _'You won't even let me cry, I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!'_

o.o.o.o.o

He listened to the birds, because they were the only nice sounds. The rest of the house was either silent, or filled with occasional violent arguments between father and son, or with distant, mysterious, spine-chilling screams.

o.o.o.o.o

Dick sipped at the dirty water and tried not to throw it back up or cry it back out.

o.o.o.o.o

It was dusk by the time footsteps approached the kitchen again. Dick needed, _needed_ someone to come and let him out of this cage and give him something to eat and give him something _real_ to drink, or at least to _acknowledge his existence_ , but the man had told him he'd hurt him if Dick 'barked or whined.' Barking was probably talking, and actual barking probably counted, too. He wasn't quite desperate enough to risk that, but he did try to make noise.

His flesh against the metal of the cage was nearly soundless, so he picked up the rope chew toy and hit whatever he could reach with it. It didn't make much noise, either, and the two people moving around in the kitchen took no notice at all.

Dick finally cried out. It wasn't a word and it wasn't a bark and it wasn't a whine. It was just a noise, to...remind them that he was there.

But they didn't come. No matter how often he made the noise, they didn't come, even though he knew they _had_ to have heard him. And when it was dark outside, they left again, without coming anywhere near the mud room.

"PLEASE!" he cried. The only answer was the soft sound of owls in the night. And then, a little while later, distant screams.

o.o.o.o.o

Whenever he was able to doze deeply enough to dream, he dreamed that he was lying in the bottom of a rowboat, wrapped up in blankets with the warm sun shining on him and Titus cuddled up beside him, as Grandpa rowed gently and talked about things Dick didn't understand, like crickets that were people who scored points, but that was okay because Grandpa had a soothing voice and called him _"My dear boy,"_ which was nice.

o.o.o.o.o

Dick felt sick. He couldn't remember if this was the second or the third day with the sun shining too hot into his cage and the birds outside too noisy, all he knew was that all the water had been gone for a while and he was nauseous and dizzy and his head hurt, and he was going to die in this place. He'd tried to eat one of the pieces of dog food, but it was hard as a rock and too big to swallow whole. His whole body was sticky and grimy, and bugs were crawling on him. He wanted very much to dream about Grandpa, but he was too sick to even sleep.

o.o.o.o.o

Not quite so hot. The sun was finally starting to set. "Good God, it's Fluffy! I forgot all _about_ him!"

Dick stared up at a gross white face and a grinning red mouth and delighted, malicious eyes hovering over the cage. He hadn't even noticed the man approach. Relieved as he was to finally, _finally_ be acknowledged, he still whimpered with fear as his captor unlocked the cage and pulled him out. Dick was too weak to move, had to just let himself be carried to the kitchen and dumped on the floor.

The sight of the sink revived him, however. Enough energy pulsed through his limbs that he was able to drag himself up, claw the faucet on, and stick his mouth into the resulting stream, heedless of the piles of dusty, dirty dishes he accidentally tipped over.

He only managed one swallow before the man wrapped an arm around his chest and pulled him away. Dick wailed as the tap was shut off.

"Bad Fluffy," the man said, smacking his nose as if Dick was a misbehaving cat. "Good kitties don't get their dirty paws all over the counter and make a mess." He pressed something into Dick's mouth that tasted like tuna. Dick didn't care if it was tuna for humans or tuna for cats; he chomped and swallowed it, desperate for the nutrients and the moisture. The man fed him for a while, cooing at him and slapping his hands down whenever Dick raised them to try to feed himself. "There you go, that's right, what a sweetie-pie...what a pretty baby you are..."

The man finally set him on the floor in front of a pair of smaller animal bowls, dirty from all the dust they'd gathered but not as filthy as the dog ones. The name 'Alfred' was engraved on these, though Dick barely noticed as he tried to pick up the water bowl to drink from.

"Nah-ah-ah-ah-ah."

His arms were yanked back and held behind him. Helpless on his knees, he was not allowed to eat or drink except by lowering his face directly into the bowls, as if he really was an animal. _'I hate you, I hate you, I hate you SO MUCH...!'_

He felt sick again, in a different way, once he'd finished, and fought to not throw up everything he'd just consumed, but at least he felt stronger and awake now. It didn't do him much good when his tormentor picked him up, because the arms pinning his limbs were so _strong_. He squirmed anyway, and the consequence was getting pinched so hard that he screamed in agony, those sharp fingers targeting the more sensitive skin under his arm and inside his thigh.

"Such a wriggly kitty~"

"I'm a boy," Dick whimpered miserably.

"Did you know that a long time ago, people used to burn cats alive for being associated with the occult? I wonder if anyone nowadays would burn a cat if it showed signs of demonic possession, such as, oh, say, _talking like a human_? Instead of making cute widdle kitty noises."

Dick cried, lying limp in his tormentor's arms. He wanted his parents. He wanted to be with his parents, wherever they were right now; he wished he'd fallen alongside them instead of being left behind.

 _To be continued..._

A/N: I'm trying to keep the explanation for Alfred in Dick's dreams open to interpretation. Originally, it was supposed to be the ghost of dark-Alfred doing what little he can to comfort him, but that bothers me for religious reasons, so for me, personally, I view it as canon-Alfred & dark-Dick somehow managing to connect through their dreams.


	3. Part 3

_In the Birdcage_ , a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

I: The Boy Who Chirps - Chapter 3 (rough draft; censored version)

 **A/N: Trigger warnings for this chapter. I'm not going to specify, but I do not recommend that anyone with abuse-related triggers read this story in the first place.**

o.o.o

The man carried him deeper into the house, and then through a secret door in the wall. Down into the dark and the cold, and it so terrified Dick that he struggled again despite the punishment for doing so.

 _Dick is assaulted on the staircase and vomits as a result._

Dick panted for breath and started to cry again, stinking and covered with cold sweat and still gagging at what had just been done to him. He felt too weak to resist when he was picked up again and thrown over his torturer's shoulder and carried the rest of the way down the stairs.

At the bottom, lights snapped on, revealing a vast computer bank and several different kinds of work areas, but they made a small island surrounded by a sea of blackness. Dick could hear the sound of bats squeaking and flapping around.

 _Dick is rinsed off and makes an escape attempt, but is quickly caught and physically punished._

He didn't know how much time had passed before the pain finally became tolerable enough for him to look for his torturer. The man was hunched at the computers, working. Dick himself was strapped to a table surrounded by disorganized medical equipment.

 _'Bats. A cave.'_ A cold realization began to dawn on him. Gotham City was the haunt of a bat-demon who lurked in the shadows and attacked those who offended him. Dick had thought it was only an urban legend, but if the Batman was real...if he was a human being, rather than some supernatural creature...he would live in a place like this. He would wear something like that dark, black-caped, bat-cowled suit hanging haphazardly in a fractured display case. Even the ghost stories hadn't mentioned anything about Batman targeting children, but if the Batman really was a violent thug who had given himself to hell, it was certainly possible that he would hurt a child.

 _'Help me...someone, someone help me...!'_

After a while, the smaller distresses began to gain more and more of his attention. He was still in pain, but the cold had become just as bad; his teeth were audibly clacking together and his naked body was a mass of goosebumps. He was starting to feel light-headed and his limbs ached, more and more as time passed and he was unable to shift position. He _hated_ finding himself back in the horrible state of wanting to get as far away from his tormentor as possible, yet being tempted to call out to him just so that his misery would _change_.

 _'It'll be worse,'_ he tried to tell himself. _'If he comes, whatever he does to you will be even worse than this...!'_ Tears were leaking out of his eyes again.

At last, the Batman pulled back from the computer and stretched with a noisy groan, got up, and started to amble toward the stairs. Dick couldn't stop a sob from breaking out of him at the thought of being trapped down in this freezing cold hell for days again, this time in the dark, without even being able to move.

The Batman stopped. "Oh, _right_ , my new pet! Totally forgot about him again!" He bounded over to the table. Dick cried, waiting, knowing it was useless to beg. "Hmmmm, now what should I do with it? Got to be careful - it's a blank canvas _now_ , but if I start the wrong project, I'm going to have to scrap this one and start _all over again_." He hummed obnoxiously as he circled the table, surveying the child bound to it. "Geez, cheer up, Fluffy. You look like you're at a funeral."

Dick didn't even try to respond.

"So here's a joke I heard when I was your age: What's red and green and travels at 150 miles per hour? A frog in a blender! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

"..."

" _God_ , lighten up, kid." He snapped his fingers. "Aha - I know just the thing to put a smile on your face!"

"Please don't hurt me," Dick whispered. The Batman totally ignored him, going over to rummage through a container filled with vials and canisters. It took a long time and a lot of muttering, but the man finally exclaimed in triumph and came back. "Please...please...please...please...!"

"We're still testing, so we'll try an aerosol version first," the Batman said airily, ignoring his captive's distress. He sprayed something noxious into Dick's face.

Dick coughed violently, causing the straps to bite into his flesh. Coughing only seemed to make it worse instead of better - his lungs, nostrils, and the inside of his mouth flared with pain, his eyes watered, something bad was happening to him. His cheeks felt like they were starting to stiffen and warp, stretching the corners of his mouth high and wide until his teeth were bared. His skin itched, particularly on his face, and his coughs were, against his will, turning into desperate barks of laughter. "Ha...ha...ha, ha, ha, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...!"

He was glad his mind was going fuzzy, because the pain of being poisoned and of involuntarily jerking in his restraints and of laughing so hard for so long was unbearable. Tears streamed from his eyes, and the only thing to distract him from the pain was to silently rage at his captor, whose laughter was mixing with Dick's.

"Oh, I'm so glad to have a pet again! We're going to have such _fun_ , you and I."

o.o.o.o.o

Dick took a long time to wake up. It was pitch black, and he wasn't bound, which was such a mercy that he just lay there on the hard floor for a long time, slowly getting his bearings.

He had no idea where he was; he couldn't even see his hand in front of his face. There were colored dots in the distance, some blinking and others steady, but they provided no illumination.

His entire body hurt. He had a headache and a stuffy nose like he was coming down with a cold - even though he was shivering and desperate for a blanket, the skin on his forehead felt hot. His face felt raw, his eyes and nose and cheeks ached, his mouth and lips were painfully dry, his lungs hurt so much that he couldn't take deep breaths, his bottom and thighs were sore. He was still naked except for the collar around his neck and the grimy, makeshift bandage sliding down from the injury on his arm. He winced every time his fingertips encountered a bruise from the leather straps.

He felt weak and light-headed, but there was nothing else to do, so eventually, slowly, he started to crawl. His progress was slow, so it took a long time before he was startled by bumping into an obstacle. Some sort of glass or plastic surface, going to the floor and spreading out above and to both sides for as far as he could reach. Maintaining contact with the smooth surface, he moved slowly alongside it. He had to rest every few inches, and he might have dozed off once or twice.

He startled himself again by knocking into something on the floor. Eventually, he figured out that it was a dish of cat food. He didn't think he could stomach it right now, but he knew he might need it later, so he started dragging it along with him so as not to lose it.

His explorations found occasional seams or grooves in the surface he was following; this thing _might_ have a door. _'It_ _has_ _to have a door, doesn't it, or a hatch? He had to have put me in here somehow.'_ No matter how much he pried or fiddled with the seams, though, he couldn't get them to move in any way.

He was startled one last time, when he hit his aching head against something. Touch exploration revealed it to be some sort of cot, devoid of bedding, but it was at least marginally more comfortable than the floor. Exhausted and fairly sure that he was locked in some kind of cell, Dick dragged himself onto the cot, curled up in a tight ball to conserve warmth, and wished desperately for sleep. It was a long time coming, but it did come eventually.

o.o.o.o.o

The lights were painfully sudden and bright. Dick whimpered, pulling his arms over his head in a pathetic attempt to shield himself. There was a whooshing sound and footsteps; he was seized and dragged, then strapped down to a table. He felt nauseous and like his head was a balloon drifting above his body, he could barely see because his eyes hadn't adjusted to the light yet. Snot, some dried and some wet, coated the skin between his nose and his upper lip; sometimes he could taste it when he swallowed.

The Batman's voice prattled; Dick didn't have the energy to decipher the words. Even when he was poisoned again and tortured with that awful laughter, he couldn't think; his entire being was made up of pain and wordless misery.

At some point, he was dragged back to the transparent cell and locked in again. He lost consciousness before the lights had even turned off.

o.o.o.o.o

Dick knew he was dying. Even the Batman knew Dick was dying. "Something is _wrong_ with you! I think my little Fluffy-wuffy is sick!"

Dick was carried upstairs into the house, brought into a bedroom, and tucked into a bed. He was so grateful to have blankets to burrow into that he didn't care how dusty they were. He wished he could just be left to die in peace, but the Batman kept parading in with various 'comforts and remedies.'

 _Dick is subjected to abusive versions of common treatments for a sick child._

When Dick was caught trying to drag himself to the bathroom, he was tied to the bed because "you're sick, you need to rest!" The bedding was now heavily soiled from various spills and excretions; the bedpans and buckets of vomit, though their contents were disposed of, were not cleaned. Their stench made it even through Dick's stuffed-up nose for a while, until he grew too used to it to notice anymore.

"Hmph! You're just _not getting better_ , are you!" the Batman complained on what might have been the second or third day. Or the hundredth. "Hmmm." He snapped his fingers. "Guess we'd better call a doctor."

To be continued (sort of)...

A/N: Okay, so starting with the next installment, I'll do the synopsis thing from the get-go. Please let me know what you guys think!


	4. Part 4

_**In the Birdcage**_ **, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **I: The Boy Who Chirps - Part 4 (rough draft)**

A/N: I'm censoring parts of the fic from here on out (though this particular chapter didn't need any censoring), and I fixed the previous three chapters to match. Although it turns out I have to write BWL's scenes in real-time after all, censoring him before I post still helps.

o.o.o

Dick startled out of a doze when he heard someone entering the room again.

It was the Batman, of course, and this time he wasn't alone. Dick shifted frantically, but couldn't move much with his wrists lashed to the headboard. "Here he is~! My poor kitty's been absolutely _miserable_. I do hope you can help him, doc."

The woman whose arm he was gripping was staring at Dick with huge, horrified eyes, her mouth moving soundlessly. She wore a collar, too, but hers was made of clunky plastic rather than leather.

The Batman gave her a rough shake. "You're going to take good care of him, aren't you?"

"My God, what-?! What...?!" He shoved her so hard that she fell across the bed. She scrambled, limbs cringing away from foul-smelling stains even as her body shifted protectively between the child and the man. Dick stared at her with a tiny ember of hope. He'd thought that the 'doctor' would be another torturer, but this woman looked to be as much a captive as Dick was. She probably wouldn't hurt him. "Y-You told me... You can't just...!"

The Batman held up some sort of controller. "Of course, if you can't help him, I suppose I'll just have to look for someone else. *SIIIIGH*"

"N-No, please! No! Please, please don't! I'll do my best! Oh, God, please, don't!"

He smiled predatorily and lowered the controller. "Now, that's what I like to hear." Then he just stood there and waited expectantly.

The trembling woman turned to Dick and hesitantly laid a hand against his cheek. "Hello, sweetheart...oh, God, you're burning up..."

Tears started to sting Dick's eyes. It had been so long since someone had spoken to him with any sort of genuine affection.

"Wh-Why do you have him tied down in all this filth?! Of _course_ he's sick!"

"What do you suggest, then?" the Batman asked sweetly.

"I- He's- He's just a _child_."

"Yes, he's my baby and he's sick. Make him better," the man demanded matter-of-factly.

"I... He's...he's frightened of you. He...might not get better if you...hover."

It was a pathetic attempt, but the man pretended to fall for it. "Oh _dear_ , are you _serious_?! To think, all this time, my poor kitten was being smothered by all my attention! You're so clever, doc; I'll leave at once! Good luck~!" And then, with a slam of the door, he was gone.

The woman exhaled and burst into tears, and soon Dick was crying, too. She pulled frantically at the restraints, then calmed down enough to pick at them more methodically. "What's your name, sweetie?" she asked as she worked.

"Dick," he managed to choke out. "I-I'm Dick Grayson, he kidnapped me-"

"Oh God," she realized with a surge of fresh tears, "from Haly's Circus? The one that burned down?"

He cried harder.

"Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, oh, poor thing, I'm so sorry...!"

"He killed my mom and dad," the boy sobbed. "He blew up the circus, I bet it was him who made them fall, too. It never, Mom and Dad NEVER did an act without triple-checking the ropes, they _checked_ the ropes, I _saw_ the ropes, they were FINE, someone messed with the ropes after and th-they, Mom and Dad, he killed them, he killed Mommy and Daddy...!"

He was already clinging to her with the first hand she had freed. When she managed to loosen the second rope, he squeezed her tightly as he cried into her shirt, and she hugged him back.

"I'm so sorry, Dickie," she whispered. "He kidnapped me, too. I...I'm not actually a people doctor, I'm a vet. He grabbed me when I was walking to my car tonight and brought me here...he told me you were a cat- Oh, God, he's _sick_ , he's crazy, he strapped this- this _thing_ around my neck, it's a bomb and he's going to kill me if I don't do what he says...!"

After they had cried for a while, Dick got hold of himself first, and he saw the lady struggling to calm herself down, too. "What's your name?" he asked, because it had helped when she'd asked his. He was so glad to hear someone, someone _nice_ , call him by his real name again.

"I- M-My name is Becca," she said, scrubbing at her eyes. "Oh... Oh, Dick, we've got to do something about this, this is _horrible_." She got a clean-ish pillowcase from the far end of the bed to tie around his waist and then helped him to the bathroom, but was appalled by the state of the bathtub. He was too weak by then to make it much farther, so she made him as comfortable as she could on the carpet just outside the bathroom so she could scrub the tub with ancient cleaning supplies she found in the cabinets.

He woke up from a doze to hear her exclaiming, "Oh my God...oh my God, there is NO HOT WATER in this house, oh my God, what am I going to _do_...?!"

She ended up sponge-bathing him. Although she seemed to think he would be embarrassed, he was long past caring that she saw him naked. What made him cry was the discomfort of the cold washcloths, even though she tried exhaling on them to warm them.

She found clothes and extra bedding that had been clean before they'd started gathering dust. She shook them out and got Dick dressed and wrapped in blankets on the divan by the wall, with a freshly-cleaned trash can beside him in case he needed to throw up again. He fell back asleep to the sound of her quiet cursing as she worked to get the rest of the room cleaned up.

He jerked awake, but found that it was only Becca gently shaking his shoulder. "I have some soup, and it's warm," she whispered. "Can you sit up, honey?"

It took him a very long time to eat as much as he could tolerate of the soup. Becca kept crying off and on, but he didn't know how to comfort her, since he would have cried, too, if he wasn't so tired. "Do you think he's going to kill us?" she asked tremulously.

"I don't know..."

"Oh, Dick, I can't stand this! I have to get out of here, I have to get out of here and I've got to take you with me; oh, God, I've got to figure out how to escape from a _murderous psychopath_ -! Oh, Dick, doesn't he remind you of the Joker?!"

"No," Dick mumbled. The Batman wasn't a joker at all, his 'jokes' were _horrible_ , not funny.

"He does...he does, he's got that awful, _awful_ smile just like the Joker, and that pasty white skin, it's like someone smashed the Batman and the Joker into one person...and this _house_ , do you think he killed Bruce Wayne and stashed his body somewhere...?!"

Listening to the hysterical tone of her voice, Dick started to wonder, his heart sinking, if maybe Becca wouldn't be able to help him as much as he thought she would. _'She made you clean and brought you food,'_ he told himself. _'Be grateful. She's better than HIM.'_

The rest of the night passed. Dick slept some more, waking up off and on to the sounds of Becca's manic cleaning or frantic sobbing. The first time he woke up when there was daylight, he saw Becca curled up asleep in a pile of blankets on the floor near the divan.

There was a sharp, irregular knocking at the door that probably matched the tune of something. "Oh, Fluffy~!" called a voice from the other side.

Dick disentangled a hand from his cocoon of blankets and frantically shook the woman's shoulder. "Becca...Becca, wake up...!"

The Batman swept in with a flourish. Becca screamed and scrambled backward, then started crying hysterically. Dick stirred, but was too weak to get up or stop the man from ripping off the covers and examining him with rough, proprietary hands. "Hmmm, still sick, I see, but he's looking much better, much better! Nice job, doc. Up- To the right- To the leeeeft...good _boy_." Black-nailed hands abruptly released him, and Dick fell back against the pillows. Crying softly in fear and revulsion, he struggled to bury himself back in the blankets, his skin crawling where the man had touched him.

The Batman strode over to Becca, who cowered. "Please don't kill me...please don't kill me...!"

"Don't be silly, doc! You've been doing _such_ a good job. Come have breakfast, I made it myself~" He dragged the weeping woman out of the room.

As soon as they were gone, Dick struggled out of bed, tried to stand, and collapsed. He could crawl, though, so he made his way to the nearest window. This room was on the second floor. The window latch was in bad shape and too hard for him to undo, but maybe Becca could do it, if...if she came back, if their captor didn't kill her.

Dick tried the next window. The latch budged farther than the previous one had, but he still couldn't get it completely undone. By then, he was so tired that he couldn't make it back to the divan, so he fell asleep on the floor, his limbs feeling weightless and his nose so stuffed he couldn't breathe through it at all, his head so swimmy that he wondered if he was going crazy.

o.o.o.o.o

Becca came back. She couldn't do anything but cry for a while, but finally she was able to tell Dick that the Bat-Joker (as she called him) had said they could move to a different room with an unsoiled mattress. She couldn't lift Dick on her own, but she helped him shuffle to the room next door and got him settled on the bed. Then she lay there hugging him for a long time, which was kind of nice but also really hot.

When Becca wasn't sleeping or crying or telling Dick about her pets or her ex-fiancé or escape plans that even he could tell would never work, she went tentatively exploring. The TV showed nothing but static, but she did unearth some old Disney videos that she was able to put on for Dick. When she dared to ask for food other than soup, both she and Dick were shocked that it was provided - fresh purchases, sealed so they'd know there had been no tampering. Dick and Becca sat on the bed together, eating tuna with crackers and watching _Pinocchio_ and crying, whispering ideas for escape to each other whenever they thought of any new ones.

On the second night, Dick's fever finally broke. He woke up feeling cold and covered with drying sweat, and better than he had in ages. "Becca?" he whispered. She jerked awake. She had more trouble sleeping than he did, so he felt bad, but also like he could survive an escape attempt if they tried one. "I feel better. And I need to pee."

"Okay," she said, getting up at once. "Do you need help?"

He tried getting out of bed. He was a little wobbly and weak, but at least he felt clear-headed and completely connected to his body again. "Maybe a little."

He peed and she took his temperature, which was normal, and gave him a granola bar to eat, which helped a lot. "Becca, can we please escape now?"

She made a pained little gasping sound. "Not yet, sweetheart, not yet. When he sees we're gone, he'll just blow me up." She pointed to her bomb collar, and Dick's heart sank. "But, Dickie, listen...if you pretend to be sick a little longer, I can- I'm gonna try to..." She drew in a shaky breath. "I-I'm gonna see if I can get the controller, baby. While he's sleeping. And when I have it, then we can run and someone can get this thing _off_ me when we reach the city."

"Okay. Let's try to save some water and stuff to bring with us, just in case."

Neither of them could sleep, too keyed up with anticipation and apprehension. When the sun began to rise, Becca used the bedside lamp to keep Dick's skin fever-hot, and the boy did his best to act like he'd felt when he was still ill, both longing for and dreading the next moment their tormentor would stick his head into the room to check on them. In the meantime, having nothing to listen to but Becca's anxious rambling was hard, so he asked for another movie.

"Fluffy~!"

Dick coughed to try to hide his shudder and let out a little moan, which didn't take much acting ability.

"How's my kitten doing today?"

"He's still sick," Becca said, her voice too fast and high-pitched. "We need more food and medicine - the kind I _asked_ you to get."

"Hmmm." A white hand pressed briefly against Dick's grimy forehead and then gripped his face, turning it upward. Dick forced himself to keep his eyes heavy-lidded and his body still, wishing he could get his breathing to slow down. "I don't know, I'm starting to think it's just that you're a sucky doctor."

Becca whimpered. Dick didn't know whether to stick to the plan, or try to protect Becca and risk blowing their cover.

The man abruptly dropped him. "Eh, I'll give it another day or two. Get well soon, Fluffy!"

Becca exhaled in deep relief when the Batman left. "Ohhh, Dickie, just a little longer, just hold on a little longer, and then we'll be out of here!"

Dick couldn't shake the eerie feeling that their captor could somehow hear them. "Maybe...maybe you should whisper."

The day seemed to crawl by. Dick couldn't stand sitting through anymore movies, so Becca found a stained deck of cards for them to play with, and a few books to read to him. The Batman popped in a few more times, but didn't try to approach Dick again.

"He keeps it in his coat pocket," Becca whispered excitedly to Dick. "Tonight, I'll wait 'til he's asleep, he'll have to take off his coat before he goes to bed. I can steal the controller then."

"What if he...what if he takes it out of the coat before he goes to bed?"

"He'll still have it nearby. It shouldn't be too hard to find."

They did manage to sleep a little, taking turns so that there was always someone on watch, though neither of them got much rest even when it was their turn to nap. At long last, the sun began to set, but then they had to wait even longer for the Batman to go to bed.

"Dick," Becca suddenly gasped at about 9:30, "the Batman...he works at night. What if Joker-Bat works at night, too?!"

Dick felt cold. But then he remembered, "He was awake during the day, though. Maybe that means he'll sleep at night?"

"Oh, God, I hope so..."

At about 1:00 in the morning, Becca nervously crept out of the room. Dick felt like he was going crazy waiting for her, so he started mentally reciting all of Mr. Haly's introductions to each act.

After about twenty minutes, Becca rushed back in on tip-toes. "Dickie! Dickie!" she whispered in jittery triumph, waving the controller in one hand. "He _does_ sleep at night! _Snores_ , too."

Relief crashed down on him. Dick swung out of bed, pulled on the shoes Becca had found for him earlier, and retrieved from its hiding spot the duffel bag he and Becca had packed bit by bit throughout the day. He turned to find Becca stripping the sheets off the bed. "What are you doing?"

"So we can climb out the window."

Dick stared. He had seen the view out those windows, and he remembered, on the nightmarish drive to this awful house, how much time had passed between the last sounds of traffic and their arrival. "Becca...I think we need a car."

She paused. Then she slapped her palm against her forehead. "Aaaaaggghhh, I'm such a dummy...!"

"I know where the garage is." He led the way, glad that Becca thought to pause on the threshold and see if there was a key rack (there was).

She lit up like a kid in a candy store when she saw all the vehicles they could take their pick from. "This is almost too easy!"

"It is, isn't it?"

Both of them whipped around in horror and were chilled to find their captor leaning casually in the entryway to the mud room.

"NO!" Becca shrieked. "NO! NO-!"

"Becca, run!" Dick cried, trying to drag her toward the nearest car, but the key he'd grabbed didn't fit in the lock.

The Batman's approach was slow, his smile wide and cruel. "Going somewhere?"

"You can't kill me!" Becca screamed hysterically, brandishing the controller. "You can't blow me up! You can't do it without this! You can't!"

"Doc, calm down. I would never, _ever_ kill you with a bomb."

They both stared at him, terrified and confused.

"I _can't_ activate that bomb without the controller, so you're right. You win. No bombs for you." _BANG_

It was so sudden, Dick couldn't understand what had happened at first. It took him several seconds to realize that what had just splashed across him was blood. _'No...'_

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" the Batman was laughing uproariously, carelessly swinging the gun still smoking in his hand. "Your _faces_ , you were all, like, 'Wuuuhhh?' and then BANG and then, ha ha ha ha, she doesn't even _have_ a face now...!"

 _'N-No. No. No. No.'_ Dick stared down at himself, because as awful as the bright crimson splattered across him was, he couldn't bear to look at his tormentor, and he knew he absolutely _could not_ look beside him. He couldn't look. He couldn't look. If he looked, he would see...he would see it, he would see _'No, no, no, no, no, no...!'_

He couldn't move. Even when the demon man took hold of him and started to drag him back across the garage, he could not make himself move, even to try to save his own life. He couldn't lift a finger to stop it when when the stained clothes were sliced apart and tugged off his body.

"Ridiculous; I can't _stand_ people who cram their pets into costumes, it's revolting. You're not even _her_ pet, you're _mine_."

The cage door shut, the lock clicked. Footsteps marched away. Dick lay there on the cold, fuzzy, smelly metal and could not move or make a sound, could do nothing but shake as he listened to the sounds of booted feet moving back and forth, to the sound of quiet curses, to the sound of...something being dragged across the floor. Then a door slammed, and it was silent.

To be continued...

A/N: Man, I thought I'd have a chance yesterday to catch up on TBWS's behind-the-scenes work. Unfortunately, I happen to be stuck in one of my days-long research binges, so all I had time to do was make a bit of progress on the TBWS timeline and a lot of progress on the prequel, which is low priority. The next ItB chapter is drafted, at any rate.


	5. Part 5

_**In the Birdcage**_ **, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Part I: The Boy Who Chirps - Chapter 5 (rough draft)**

Dick blinked. He knew that time had passed, it felt like only a minute but he knew it had been longer, he didn't know it had been whole hours until he realized that the sun was rising. He had been in this same position for hours. He had...he'd had...Becca's blood...drying on his skin for hours.

He jolted, and now that he'd finally moved, a tingling ache spread through him that rapidly intensified to pain. As his body burned with the return of normal bloodflow, Dick began to cry at last, and then to scream. He screamed to drown out his own thoughts, the images in his head. She'd fallen away from him, but some of her blood had still- That _smile_ , that sick, toothy grin as he shot her _'Becca! Becca! Come back!'_ why hadn't he shot Dick, too?!

"MOOOOMMM! I WANT MY MOM! I WANT MY DAD!" Dick screamed. He should have died, too. Why hadn't that monster shot him, too?! "Mom...!"

As soon as the pain began to subside, he frantically rubbed and clawed at the dark red crust on his skin, then swept the little bits out of the cage as best he could. He was shivering violently, and he couldn't tell if it was from cold or trauma. "WHY WON'T YOU KILL ME?!" It _hurt_ , how close they'd been to escape. Maybe not close, that bastard had probably been toying with them all along, they'd never had a chance; but freedom had _seemed_ to almost be in their grasp. It hurt.

Dick started pounding and clawing at the cage, trying to bend the bars or pry them...something... _anything_ , he had to get out of here... It was a sturdy cage, though; he exhausted himself trying. His fingers ached, he'd cut himself a few times. "Why won't you kill me..."

He curled up, clutching his knees to his chest. For a long time, thoughts of dead, bloody Becca chased thoughts of his dead, bloody parents and his dead, burning home. Sometimes he tried to push them away with good memories, his parents teaching him new techniques, talking to Zitka, playing with his friends, but the minute he stopped concentrating, the blood and death and flames pushed their way in again.

The house was deathly silent. The only noise was from the birds and the wind outside. Fixating on them helped a little - he didn't have to conjure up memories or desperately hold onto them, the birdsong was already there. Dick tried to think about nothing, nothing but the sounds of the birds.

After a while, when the sunlight shining into the mud room was strong enough that he didn't feel cold anymore, he started trying to imitate the sounds himself. That helped even more.

"Wwrrreeeooohh..." It was an almost mournful sound, like the bird was wondering why he was alone or why his friends didn't like him.

"Rr _ee_ ah rr _ee_ ah?" Questioning, curious.

"Creekahkahkohrreeahrreeah..." Chatty, almost bossy.

"Kkguaaaaah...!" Like he was calling to the flock, giving notice about something.

 _'I bet they talk just like we do. I bet Bird is a language just like Romani or English or Spanish.'_

Hours passed. When he got tired of making bird sounds, he started cramming most himself into sides or corners of the cage so he could stretch out each part of him as much as room would allow.

When he finally fell asleep...

 _"Grandpa,"_ he wept. It had been a long time since he'd seen him. _"Why is he doing this to me?"_

 _"I don't know,"_ the old man whispered, holding him tightly. _"I would kill to get you out of this wretched place, young master, but I'm...powerless..."_

 _"Don't let me wake up,"_ Dick begged. _"Please don't let me wake up, just let me stay here with you."_

It was an impossible request. When Dick woke, his mouth was dry as a bone, and there wasn't even a drop of water in the disgusting pet bowl this time. He covered his face and tried not to cry and waste water, but he couldn't help it. _'Mama...Daddy...Becca...'_ He tried to at least catch the tears with his hands and lick them up. "Mooooooomm! Mooooooomm! AAAAAAAHHHHH, I _HATE YOU_ , I HATE YOU...I hate you...!"

Towards evening, he found that if he focused on a spot on the ceiling and sort of...let his mind drift...not jerking back every time he hit a blood-soaked memory, just leaning away and floating onward, letting the wind and the birdsong guide him...

Nightfall. He accidentally slipped out of the floatiness and couldn't get back in. He couldn't sleep, he was so thirsty it _hurt_. He tried stretching again, which helped a little. Only a tiny bit, but at least it was something to do. It did, however, raise fresh goosebumps on his skin and make him shiver more. "...Fuck you."

Dick had never in his life used that word before, or any comparative swear in any language, but he thought even his mom and dad wouldn't scold him for saying it about the demon man who'd locked him in this _dog cage_ with no water or food or clothes or blankets. He was a murderer and a torturer who thought it was _funny_ to shoot people in the face and make children scream and cry. "FUCK YOU!" Dick shouted at the top of his aching voice, then followed it up with all the worst words he knew in every language he knew.

It didn't help. It just made him tired and weepy again. Cussing wouldn't get him out of this cage, _nothing_ would get him out of this cage except being dragged out to be hurt even more. "Damian," he wailed, "Damian, come kill me! You said you'd kill me if I talked, I'M TALKING TO YOU, SO COME KILL ME...!" The only sound from within the house was a sudden, distant scream that sent chills of fear down Dick's spine, and then he was too frightened to make anymore noise.

o.o.o.o.o

Dick's eyes were crusted closed, it would hurt too much to open then. He dully pursed his lips to imitate the morning birdsong without thinking about it. His mouth was so dry that most of the sounds he produced were faint wheezes, with an occasional split second's whistle escaping. He knew that people died of thirst before they died of hunger. He just had to wait...maybe a day or two longer, and then his misery would finally be over.

He gasped and jerked, hitting his head on the bars; it was so cold against his bare skin that it _hurt_ , yet his body was already thrusting up, lapping desperately. A lazy, black-nailed hand above the cage tipped the bottle at irregular intervals. Dick had to kneel there like a desperate animal, waiting for the moment when water would make it past the lip of the container, then he had to be fast fast fast to gulp it down before it was all wasted on the dirty floor of the cage.

 _'What are you doing?!'_ he mentally screamed at himself. _'Don't drink it! Don't play his game! You're supposed to die of thirst!'_ But his body wouldn't obey him. Almost his whole top half was crushed against the top of the cage, his eyes fixed on every minute movement of the water bottle. The demon man, standing over the cage, looked highly amused. Dick wanted to punch every one of his teeth out of his face and then stab something through an eye into his brain.

"Such a _cutie_ ," the Bat-Joker said with what sounded like real affection.

"Fuck you," Dick hissed.

 _Dick is warned to close his eyes and then punished._

"Behave, you," the man scolded playfully, then wandered away.

Dick clawed at himself, rubbed himself desperately against the wet floor of the cage, trying to get the substance _off_. All the skin it had touched was turning red; the parts where the spray had touched his injuries felt like they were on fire; a strange smell was coming from where it had landed on his hair. "DAMN YOU, WHY WON'T YOU KILL ME?!"

o.o.o.o.o

Dick lay in the rays of the setting sun, eyes closed, flesh stinging, fingers tucked hopelessly between the collar and his neck because he wished so badly that he could pull it off.

 _Dead Becca...dead Mom and Dad...burning Haly's..._

 _"Why did you do that, I am so irritated!"_ a bird twittered outside in agitation, or at least, that's what it sounded like to Dick. Overlaid with, _"No no no come back, stop that!"_ from its companion. Or maybe it was more like, _"I can't stand your stupid bad habits!"_ and _"_ _You're_ _one to talk, yours are worse than mine!"_ Or maybe, _"How can you waste time worrying about that when there's a boy being tortured three meters away from us!"_ and _"What do you expect me to do? I'm only a bird!"_

 _'That's definitely not what they're saying,'_ Dick thought dully. _'The birds could care less about me. They don't even know I exist._ _No one_ _outside this hell house knows I exist, because he fucking killed everyone who cared about me.'_ Tears were seeping out of his eyes again. _'DON'T WASTE WATER!'_ he raged at himself, but was too tired to move.

 _"I found something interesting~!"_ one of the birds twittered cheerfully outside, or whatever it was so excited about.

Dick pursed his lips to copy the sound so that he would be too busy to cry.

o.o.o.o.o

"Oh, no, don't stop on _my_ account!"

Dick, now at the far end of the cage, stared in terror and hatred at his captor. The man could be scarily _soundless_ when he wanted to be, Dick hadn't even noticed him until he'd opened his eyes.

"Look." The man held out a fresh water bottle invitingly. "If you sing for me, I'll give you a treat~!"

"..."

"To make it up to you, for thinking you're a dog or a cat when you're _obviously_ a little bird."

Dick wanted to refuse. He wanted so badly to refuse, to spit on the closest part of his captor he could reach, but his mouth was _so_ dry, and his body didn't agree with him about wanting to die.

Slowly, Dick struggled to moisten his mouth enough to twitter. Six notes, nine, and just when he was about to stop and attempt to spit, the Batman approached and unscrewed the cap from the bottle. "Open up, sweet bird."

Dick didn't dare at first, but then the precious clear liquid began spilling down into his cage, and his body did that acting without his permission thing again. This time, the bottle stayed still, and Dick, clutching the top bars of the cage [. . .], gulped down mouthful after mouthful. The water tasted like plastic, but at least it was _clean_.

[. . .] Dick shivered and wanted to scream in fury, but his belly was finally full of water. He actually felt a little sick from it, but at least his mouth wasn't dry anymore. Now the chill of liquid on his naked body had replaced thirst as the most insistent torture.

"I _like_ this new trick of yours, sweet bird. Do it again."

"..."

 _Yeah, we don't need this crap._

Dick squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn't have to look at the face of the man who was breaking his spirit. He felt hot tears spilling down his cheeks. _"So lonely,"_ he warbled as best he could when he was freezing cold and had a man's hand clamped around his jaw. _"I miss you, I want to fly away..."_

"Eh, needs practice. But A for effort, little Robin."

 _'Don't call me that!'_ Dick wanted to scream. His mother had used to call him that sometimes, he couldn't _stand_ hearing it from this psychopath. He bit down on his lip to stop himself from saying something his captor would make him regret.

"Good birdies get treats. Here." A thick blanket was wrapped around Dick before he was bundled back into the cage. "Can't have you getting sick again, anyway." The cage door slammed, the lock clicked. Footsteps retreated.

Dick lay there, shocked. The blanket was a bone-deep relief, but his insides still roiled with hatred for his tormentor. He felt furious, and helpless, and sick with shame and humiliation. Sick to his stomach physically, too. In any case, it was hard to move, so he lay there in that blanket and stared at the ceiling and listened to the owls outside until he fell asleep.

o.o.o.o.o

He didn't want to imitate the birds anymore, because he didn't want to do anything his captor wanted him to do, but he was... _sooooo_... _bored_...

 _"La la la la la la, what a beautiful day~!"_ some irritating prick outside the window was singing. Dick wanted to throw rocks at anyone who sounded so happy, even if that person was an oblivious bird.

 _"What to do, what to do~"_ another one chirped to itself.

Dick imagined Grandpa sitting beside him, quiet and kind and ready to listen. _"Listen to my story,"_ he crooned, taking some of the sad bird sounds he remembered and replicating them as best he could as he thought the human words. _"There once was a little boy, and he was happy because he lived with a mom and dad who loved him in the best circus in the world..."_

o.o.o.o.o

Sing for himself. Stretch. Stare at that spot on the ceiling. Flare up in hatred. Sing for the Bat; lap up water like an animal. HATE. Talk to Grandpa or Mom or Dad or Becca. Sleep. Sing. Stretch. Stare. Sing. Hate. Stretch. Talk. Sleep. Stare. Sing...

o.o.o.o.o

He'd lost track of how many days and nights he'd been trapped in the cage. The room now smelled as awful as the first sickroom had. Dick didn't even have to stare at that spot on the ceiling anymore to float above his body and above time, but he knew better than to think death was near.

Well, it _was_ near, since he hadn't had a scrap to eat in so long. He'd been so hungry at one point that he'd chewed on the blanket and on his own body, desperately sucked up his own blood, but he wasn't hungry anymore. Now he was just Tired.

But he knew better now. The Bat hadn't forgotten him. The Bat was waiting until Dick reached the brink of death, until Dick had hope that he was about to die and escape this hell at last, but when that happened, Bat would come striding in and rescue Dick so that Dick would be alive and healthy enough to be tortured some more.

 _'I have to kill myself when he's with me,'_ Dick thought dully. _'He won't let me kill myself when I'm alone.'_ He hadn't sung last time, had simply trembled and cried when he was sprayed, and still refused to sing. But then the Bat had come back with a bucket of water to rinse the acid from his skin, and a bottle of water to force to his mouth, and a dry blanket to wrap him in so he wouldn't get sick again and die, and he hadn't asked Dick to sing again (though he _had_ dragged Dick out of the cage long enough to beat him with a wooden bar, wanting him to "bruise, not bleed, just like you're bruising my heart, sweet bird"). Bat didn't want him dead. Bat wanted him to suffer.

 _'I want YOU to suffer. When you finally do kill me, I will haunt you until you think life isn't worth living anymore.'_

He woke up because Bat was undoing the lock. Dick tried to cringe back, but he was so weak and cramped that he could barely move. Bat stripped the blanket away from him, snapped a leash chain to the collar on his neck, and dragged him out of the mud room. [. . .]

The kitchen smelled amazing. The occasional scents of food had sometimes wafted into the mud room to torment Dick, but now, the smell of freshly cooked meat was unbearable. Drool was already leaking out of Dick's mouth. Before he could get his bearings, a plate was set on the floor in front of his face, filled with chunks of perfectly prepared meat.

Dick tore into it like a rabid animal. His teeth were weak and achy, but he still gobbled, driven by his body's intense desire for nutrients. He'd already swallowed half of what was on the plate before he started to notice specifics about the taste. He'd visited many countries and had all sorts of unusual meals in his life, but this was different than anything else he'd tried before.

"You like it, Robin?" the Bat asked, sounding proud.

Dick jerked his head to glare fiercely. Already, he could feel strength returning to his thin limbs. He managed to sit up, and opened his mouth to say something cutting - or, more likely, lose his nerve at the last minute and just caw like an angry bird - but then he noticed that the Bat had been sitting at the table, casually eating as well. His fork was currently uplifted, a chunk of meat speared on the end.

Dick looked back down at what was left on his own plate, and stared. _'What kind of meat is this?'_ he wondered uneasily. It didn't look like beef or quite like pork, and was definitely not chicken; not mutton or venison, either. _'What...what kind of meat is this...?!'_ Without thinking, he made an anxious, questioning bird noise.

"I cooked it myself! Damian's out, but I thought it'd be cozy to have a little family dinner together, you and me and our good friend, Doc Becca."

 _'But Becca's not- Becca's-'_

[*Check AO3 if you have an account there], the Batman stood over him and laughed and laughed and laughed.

To be continued...


	6. Part 6

_**In the Birdcage**_ **, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Part I: The Boy Who Chirps - Chapter 6 (rough draft)**

He was being dragged somewhere. He didn't care. No, down in the cave, he did care about that, he fought, but then he was beaten. When the blows finally stopped falling, he fixated desperately on a green light on a machine and used it as an anchor so the rest of him could float up, up, away...

Near the ceiling, he found Becca's ghost. She didn't realize she was floating, too; she was holding her ghost-stethoscope against a ghost-dog. _"Hi, Becca."_

 _"Oh, hi, Dickie!"_

 _"I'm sorry I ate you."_

 _"Ate me? Don't be silly, I'm just fine here at work,"_ she laughed.

 _"Can I watch you?"_

 _"Sure!"_

He watched Becca pet the dog and give it some medicine, and because he was watching that, he didn't have to watch what was happening to the little boy below. There was wet and cold and too much touching, so he was very glad he didn't have to look at that boy or feel most of what he was feeling. Becca and the doggie were much more interesting to look at, and they were happy and not hurting.

 _"Good boy, Bruno,"_ Becca praised. _"You wanna see him do some tricks, Dick?"_

 _"Yeah."_ Dick knew a dog at the circus named Bruno who did all sorts of tricks with his human partner. Actually, this was the same Bruno. Because Bruno had burned up in the fire, now he was a ghost here with Becca who'd been shot and cooked and eaten. _"I bet he can jump through hoops."_

 _"He can! But that's just a warm-up."_

 _"I know."_ Now there was stickiness, [. . .] and some coughing. _'Don't look. Watch Bruno and Becca. Don't look. Don't feel.'_

Dick played with Becca and Bruno for a long time, then he wished hard that his parents would come, and finally they did. _"Dickiebird~!"_

 _"Hi!"_ He almost asked why they hadn't come to save him sooner, but he didn't, because he knew they were dead and that he hadn't been saved for real, so he pretended everything was all right and happy so that he could stay up here with the ghosts and the bats instead of getting sucked back down into his body again. _"Let's show Becca our floor routine! I know we're in the air, but we're not falling, so we can still do it."_

They played for hours. Dick didn't know if they were real hours or ghost hours, but they felt like hours. Then fire flashed to burn everything up, and he was sucked down, and he blinked aching eyes and realized that he must have been lying in the dark all this time, because it wasn't a fire, someone had just turned on the lights and it hurt.

It was Damian, crossing the cave to a weapons rack with barely a glance at him. Dick barely glanced at him, too, because he was aching so much from the last beating and so confused at the condition he found himself in. He was in a birdcage hanging from the ceiling, a cage that fit him so perfectly he knew it had been made specifically to hold him. He could sit up, but not stand; he could sprawl the way he was lying now, but not stretch out fully. He was freezing with no blanket, though the cage floor was cushioned with sawdust. There were two feeders fastened to the inside bars of the cage, one filled with water and the other with nuts and seeds, freaking _pet feeders_.

He was still naked, but something sticky had been smeared over his body before he'd been dunked or rolled in feathers, and he wanted to _kill_ that sick freak for going to such stupid lengths to turn him into a bird. He pried off as many feathers as he could, gulping down water and nuts in between. He worked for hours, even after Damian finished training and left the cave. Dick kept sitting there in the dark, fingers exploring for more feathers and ripping them away. He didn't care that the pull of glue against his skin hurt, he just wanted the feathers _off_ , and he pushed as many of the stupid things as he could out between the bars of the cage. When he had to pee, he peed out between the bars, too, hoping vengefully that the Batman would slip on his pee and break his neck and die. Then Dick would die, too, wither away in the dark from dehydration, but at least the nightmare would finally be _over_.

Lights snapped back on. "And how is my sweet bird today?"

Dick froze. Then there was a cranking sound, and the cage shuddered and began to lower jerkily. Dick started to cry with fear, he hadn't thought ahead, the man would be so angry when he saw that Dick had undone all his handiwork, he would beat him again...

There was a long silence as the man surveyed him, the boy's body now covered only with grubby glue and tiny feather remnants. Dick took deep breaths, trying to keep the tears at bay.

"My poor, deranged little bird is plucking out his own feathers, there's something _wrong_ with him."

 _"Nothing's wrong with me,"_ Dick thought, helplessly making twittering sounds that conveyed the sentiment.

"Hmmm. Maybe it's just that you don't like them because they're the wrong sort of feathers."

Dick couldn't help a sob of apprehension.

"I'll have to think about this. For now, though - _bad_ bird! No self-harm allowed!"

[. . .] He hated this, he hated this so much, he hated the Batman and he hated this cave and the filthy house above it and everything, he hated _everything_ so fucking much...!

o.o.o.o.o

He was in the dark for a long time. He found a steady dot of light to fixate on to help him get into the floatiness. When he wasn't in the floatiness, talking to his family and friends, or sleeping and talking to Grandpa, he would curl up tightly for warmth and shiver at the sound of bat squeaks and wings. The sensation of the cage constantly swaying a bit in midair was a different kind of floatiness, a less secure one. He wondered what would happen if the chain ever broke and sent him plummeting downward.

The collar itched.

 _"I'm so miserable..."_ There were no birds here to practice with, and the bats' voices were too high to imitate. _'It's dumb to just think things and make dumb sounds that don't mean anything. The sounds have to match the words.'_ "Creeeeeough." It sounded mournful enough, but so did "Rrrrrrawh" and "Eeeeeob eeeeeob" if he used the right tone. _''Ghooough' means 'miserable,''_ he decided. Then a thought occurred to him, and he tried making the same sound with different intonation. _'A question - 'Are you miserable?', maybe.'_ Except what if he was talking to his parents or Becca or someone, and they were talking about someone else entirely? What would be the difference between asking about the one he was speaking to and asking about someone else?

"Riit," he tried, and decided that that sound would mean 'that person/thing.' Maybe pointing or looking to make it clearer. "Riit ghooough?" 'Is that bat miserable?' _'Do I need a different word for 'bat' as opposed to human? Or 'boy' as opposed to 'girl'?'_ Maybe not in this particular instance, but he would at some point, so he started experimenting with different sounds for nouns and different strategies for grammar-

Light.

"Hello, sweet bird!"

Dick jerked and scrambled, then realized, discouraged, that there was nowhere for him to escape to. He was in a _cage_. It was being lowered, and when the Batman opened it up and reached inside for him, he wouldn't be able to protect himself or escape. So he twittered experimentally, trying to find a way to say 'I hate you' so that Batman wouldn't know that's what he was saying.

The cage door opened. "Poor little plucked bird. I've got a surprise for you, sweet thing; come on out here."

Dick staggered, having trouble standing after having spent so long crammed in cages and denied proper food.

"Ta da! Look what I brought for you~! This oughta cheer you up."

Dick finally focused on the bright-colored thing the Batman was brandishing for him to admire. Then he wanted to throw up. It was a costume, it was _his costume_ , tunic and shorts modeled after the red and green Robin leotard his mother had made for his very first performance, even the bright yellow cape and green pixie boots they'd added for the promotional photographs...!

"Isn't it wonderful? I found refs on the Internet and made it myself-"

"No!"

The Batman slapped him across the face. Dick would have fallen even if he wasn't so weak from lack of food; his knees hit the hard ground and his palms stung from catching himself, but he didn't care. He didn't care that he wasn't allowed to speak human words. He would _never_ wear an outfit in this hell that was meant to represent family and joy and flight.

"Let's fix you up, Robin."

Dick fought. He struggled and clawed and bit and tried to run, but his captor was too strong. He hit Dick and dragged him to a medical table and tied him down, pulling the straps viciously tight, and stuffed a gag in his mouth when the boy screamed in denial and anguish. Tears poured down Dick's face as he was forcibly dressed, individual limbs freed only long enough to slip through garments but held in a punishing grip even then.

By the time his body, grimy and still covered with dried glue and feather remnants, was fully encased in the Robin outfit, he was too traumatized to cry. He gazed up at the shadowed ceiling, trying to calm down enough to get into the floatiness. It didn't work [. . .].

"Oohh, _beautiful_. Just perfect, sweet bird; it _suits_ you. And now, the final touch!"

Fresh glue was applied to Dick's face. He tried to turn his head away, but another strap was fastened over his forehead, holding him immobile. The mask descending over his eyes felt for a moment like a coffin lid closing over him. _"I hate you and I hope you die,"_ Dick did his best to twitter as the mask settled in place, making him look like some sort of circus bandit. Like...like Robin Hood, the way Dick had imagined the forest vigilante when he'd been younger. _'No! Don't let him ruin that, too!'_

The man obnoxiously took pictures of his victim from many angles, as Dick lay there wishing he was dead, his limbs going numb from the tightness of the straps.

"Father, what are you _doing_?"

Damian had arrived, looking dubiously at the boy in the colorful outfit tied to the table.

"How do you like my new sidekick, Dames? Did you know that Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson have some sort of connection in almost _every_ universe I've studied? Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder! I figured it was about time I put my own robin to better use."

"The mask- You're taking him out with you? You're making him your _partner_?!" Damian sounded outraged.

"More like a pet with benefits."

"I'M your partner!" Damian shouted as if he hadn't even heard the response. " _I'm_ the one who wears a mask and cape at your side! You think this _thing_ could have helped you slaughter the Justice League or take down a Kryptonian, much less the whole lot of them?!"

"Careful, Damian. You almost sound jealous."

"I am not jealous, I am INSULTED! I won't let you replace me with _that_!" Damian ripped the sheath off his sword, and Dick, still tied down helplessly, was terrified when the boy lunged at him with the blade.

The Batman unexpectedly punched Damian aside. "Don't. I'm investing too much into him to let you kill him like he's some random street rat."

"Promise me I'm still your only partner," Damian hissed. "Promise me I'm the _only_ 'Boy Wonder' you'll ever need."

"You really want into the Robin club that bad? Fine."

There was a fight. Dick, immobilized as he was, couldn't see much of it; he tried instead to find the Spot that would let him into the floatiness-

"UNHAND ME!" Damian's shouting was too shrill. There was no longer any sound of weapons clashing, just the scuffle as Batman apparently dragged the boy over to a medical table near Dick's. "What are you doing?! Let me go! Let me GO, Father, what are you doing?!"

"No reason to limit myself to only one bird."

Damian continued to grunt and struggle, but Dick was pretty sure he was eventually strapped down, too, and there was a sound of ripping cloth. The other boy started cursing in Arabic as the Batman crossed to a different part of the cave.

 _'He's not hurting you,'_ Dick thought. _'If he's hurting Damian, he's not hurting you. Damian deserves it. He's awful. He hurt you, too; he was going to kill you. He's probably more used to pain, and he's older; he killed the_ _Justice League_ _, he said he killed Superman, he deserves whatever's going to happen to him, he deserves it, don't be scared, if he's hurting him then he's not hurting you, he's-'_

"What are you doing?!" Damian shrieked again, this time sounding almost panicked.

Dick couldn't see anything but the ceiling, but he could smell something like metal heating up. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"Father! I demand you release me this instant!"

 _'It doesn't have to be a real spot, just use_ _anything_ _, that bat sleeping on the stalactite-'_ The bat startled awake and flew away before Dick could float.

The shouting and the smell of heat continued. Then, "Juuuuust about ready," the man called, and the sound of metal sliding, then approaching footsteps.

"Father, no. No. Father, _please_ , no! NO! PLEASE, NO, PLEASE, NO, NO, NO...!"

There was a sound of hot metal sizzling against flesh, and Damian's screams were gut-wrenching. Dick sobbed as they went on and on, then the smell of cooking flesh hit his nose and he threw up.

Then he started choking.

Everything was pure panic for a minute as he fought wildly and unsuccessfully for air past the vomit lodged in his throat, then hands were on him, turning him, and his airway cleared. Dick wept in his tormentor's arms, vomit seeping from his mouth and nose and smearing his costume, his throat feeling like it was on fire, his limbs burning as the feeling started to return to them.

Damian was wailing in fury and agony. "YOU _FUCKING BASTARD_...YOU FUCKING BASTARD, I'LL KILL YOU," he managed to cry hoarsely between his sobs.

Dick was trembling violently, full of revulsion at the way his captor was petting him in a mock-soothing way, but too shaky to resist or pull away. He couldn't take his eyes off of Damian, who had been unbound but was still curled up on the table, rocking as he clutched at the injury on his chest. He brought his hands away for a moment to look at the damage, briefly revealing a stylized 'R,' before protectively closing his fingers over the brand again.

"I'll kill you...I'll kill you...!"

"Some~body's jealous~" The Batman sing-songed. "Don't be mad, Damian; now you're a pretty Robin, too." Then he leaned down to whisper straight into Dick's ear. The boy shuddered at the sensation of lips and hot breath. "But we know who my _real_ Robin is, don't we?" [. . .] "My best, most favorite sweet bird." He kissed Dick's cheek, then carried him upstairs like a baby.

Dick was too shell-shocked to struggle. He didn't move when a chain was fastened to his collar and he was laid on the couch, his head pillowed on his captor's thigh. One white, black-nailed hand stroked him like a loving owner stroking a pet, and Dick loathed himself for not being as repulsed by the touch as he wanted to be. He wasn't in a cage...he wasn't being tortured...he wasn't naked...it was almost warm here in the living room, the couch was soft, the touch was gentle...

He couldn't process it, the disconnect between the horror he'd just witnessed and the mundane domesticity he was experiencing now. He stared at the TV, which was playing some old Bugs Bunny cartoon, and it was as if the show was in a language he didn't know.

Now, in the calm quiet, he could finally find the Spot, and he drifted up, out of his body. No games this time, no conversation; he simply lay in Grandpa's arms and was held for as long as he was allowed to stay.

To be continued...


	7. Parts 7-9

_**In the Birdcage**_ **, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Part I: The Boy Who Chirps - Chapter 7 (rough draft)**

A/N: This story continues to make me very uneasy, I just want it _done_! Still probably a long way to go, but I did finish John's part, and since I've censored out so much from these three chapters, I'm posting what's left of them all together.

o.o.o

Dick gasped and lurched upright. He had no idea whether he'd been floating or sleeping, but either way, now that he was fully conscious in reality, he realized that he was _alone_. The TV was off, the house was silent, his captor was _gone_.

And Dick was still not in a cage. He still wore the Robin costume, the collar with the chain was still around his neck, but _the chain wasn't attached to anything_.

Trembling, Dick gathered up the chain, looping it around his arm so it wouldn't get in his way, then cautiously peered out into the hall.

Empty. It was _empty_ , every room he checked was empty, no one was guarding him, nothing was tying him down, was there any way he could just...leave...?

The key rack by the garage had been emptied and he was in too much of a hurry to look elsewhere, so he couldn't try to drive. There was a bike rack, though. Dick grabbed the bike that looked closest to the right size and wrestled it free, then crept with it to the nearest small exit, figuring he'd have a better chance of escaping into the wilderness of the back rather than the more open lawn at the front of the mansion. He'd figure out how to rejoin civilization later; even being lost and stuck in the woods for weeks would be better than being trapped in this hell house. His heart was pounding with excitement and terror. _'He might show up at the last minute and shoot you...he'll be right behind you when you're not expecting it...'_

He continued to cling to the bike and lead it through the overgrown, tangled gardens, trying to stay under cover in case anyone in the house looked out the windows. It was twilight, not dark enough yet for the night to conceal him, and even if it had been full dark, he needed to hide his movement from the windows as best he could. When he was far enough into the trees, he got on the bike and strained to push the pedals...

He was too weak. His body was undernourished, it was such a struggle trying to keep the bike upright on the grass that he realized he would actually make faster progress on foot. Cursing, he pushed the bike under some bushes and broke into a trot, then a jog (he was too exhausted to run, and knew he should probably pace himself, anyway).

Maybe the woods should be frightening at night, but they felt like freedom. He was right here on the same side of the glass as the animals; the hooting of owls and almost soundless darting of bats was right above his head. If a bear or something came out of the trees and ate him (who knew what sort of beasts the demon man kept on his property), it would be better than getting tortured or shot and cooked and eaten by a human. If Dick was a real bird, he'd be sleeping in a nest out here somewhere, without a care in the world...

 _'Focus.'_ At first, he was mainly trying for distance, but then the stars finally came out. The light pollution wasn't as bad this far out from the city, and Dick could navigate a bit. He tried to visualize the map he and his parents had looked at during the journey to Gotham. _'He said his name is Bruce Wayne; it makes sense for this to be Wayne Manor. Not many houses out here, but if I keep heading southwest, I'll_ _eventually_ _reach a highway.'_

Feeling refreshed with purpose, he hiked on, hoping there might be a stream in these woods. He was starving, but food would be easier to find, he just needed to hold out until morning. _'If I can find-'_

A sound. That was not a natural sound, it was a man-made one; Dick panicked and broke into a run. He tried to zig-zag, he tried to get behind cover, he tried anything he could think of that might help him elude his pursuer. He considered hiding, but didn't know if that noise meant the machine that was making it could knock over a tree or plow over vegetation. If he could just...find...!

The motorized cart was small enough to thread its way through the trees, and it eventually caught up to him. Then it kept pace, its driver chuckling in amusement at Dick's frantic, vain running. "Where do you think you're going, little Robin?"

Nothing to do but keep going. Keep going. The man hadn't grabbed him yet, maybe by some miracle, if he could hold out long enough to-

There! The trees were growing too closely together for the cart to fit. Dick raced into their midst and struggled his way through, hoping that if it was this hard for him to climb through the thick growth, it would be even more difficult for his pursuer. He'd been pushing through for about two minutes, breathing hard, struggling to keep the chain from getting tangled, when he suddenly staggered and fought to keep his balance. The trees grew right up to the edge of a ravine.

Dick hesitated for only a moment, then started to climb down. The drop was steep, but he could at first use the exposed tree roots for hand- and footholds. When he ran out of those, he hesitated, looped the chain around the lowest suitably hook-shaped root, and continued to descend even more carefully, struggling to keep a tight grip on one side of the chain to control his descent, and the other side to keep the pressure off his throat, digging his feet into the cliff face. It was dangerous and would be foolhardy in any other situation, but in all honesty, he would rather accidentally hang himself or fall to his death rather than be captured by the Batman again.

He'd made it about halfway down before he reached as far as he could get with the chain folded in half. There were no more roots strong enough to hold him, no rock ledges. The only way he could descend farther was to fall.

He hung there for about half a minute, in an agony of indecision, thinking in the back of his mind that his strength was going to give out soon and make the decision for him, when there was a sudden swishing noise. He screamed when he was snatched in midair, then struggled and kept screaming the whole time the Batman swung back to the top of the ravine, climbed onto solid ground, then started forcefully cuddling his captive. "Awwww, Dickie-wickie Robby-wobby, you _scared_ me! I almost _lost_ you!"

"LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME G-!" [Dick is taken back to the house and whipped in punishment for running away.]

He was released in order to be dressed in a new Robin uniform, and he didn't have the strength or will to resist that, either. Jingling bells were attached to his chafed wrists, his ankles, and the collar that had never left his neck. "So I'll always know where you are, and we'll never have a repeat of that unpleasantness!"

The birdcage was lowered, and he was bundled into it before it was hoisted up again. Dick lay in the dark, silent cave, so still in his cage that all the bells on his body were silent.

To be continued...

 _ **In the Birdcage**_ **, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Part I: The Boy Who Chirps - Chapter 8 (rough draft)**

He had no idea how long he was trapped underground, but it felt like at least two or three days, especially judging by the Batman's or Damian's periodic entrances to use the cave, and the fresh bird feed and water that appeared sometimes when Dick stopped being unconscious. Dick didn't move much, or think much. He lay there and hurt and sometimes slept and sometimes silently talked to his parents.

Then, at one point, the Batman shouted, "Eureka!" The cage lowered; Dick was dragged out of it and strapped to a table and injected with something. He started to laugh against his will. The bells around his neck jingled more and more wildly as his laughter intensified, and then each peal became half a scream - the movement was aggravating the still-healing wounds on his back. Tears were pouring down his face, he couldn't breathe, and he soon passed out.

When he woke up! He was! Ha ha ha ha! Batman, Batman, Batman~!

"Ooohh, yes, I think this batch is a keeper!"

Jingle jingle jingle jingllllle, tee hee hee, like this! And this! And this!

"Settle down, now, Robin. You hungry? You want some-?"

YES YES YES YES PLEEEEEAAAASE! Meat, meat, MMMM GOOD MEAT, for so _long_ there were only _seeds_ but now there's MEAT, filling me up all strong and good, ha ha ha ha ha...!

o.o.o.o.o

Dick woke up in a daze. His whole body felt stretched and sore, he had a headache, and there was a nasty taste in his mouth. He was lying on a couch in the living room, staring numbly at the TV [Ftr, Dick's hair is green now.]

That night, the birdcage he was locked into with a blanket covering it was left in the kitchen rather than the cave, so Dick could faintly hear the owls again. Once he was absolutely sure there was no one near, he managed, after a while, to tug the blanket off, and then he could hear the owls better, and see the moonlight. He lay there for a long time, tears seeping down his face, watching a line of ants crossing the floor. _'I want to die.'_

o.o.o.o.o

The next day was some kind of training. Humiliated, Dick obeyed orders, making bird noises, pacing at the 'proper' distance behind his captor as they walked, going, coming, pouncing, and stopping at the word "Bar!" (once he figured out what action it indicated). He wondered what would happen if he just lay down and refused to move, but the whip marks on his back still throbbed, and he didn't dare.

Then the laughing drug was forced on him.

So hungry, so hungry, SO - HUN - GRYYYYY, give food!

"Nah-ah-ah, not until you're good! I said _fly_ , Robin, to the tree and back!"

Treeeeee! Zooooom, flap flap flap just like a real bird, tree-

...There is lots and lots and lots of space past this tree, why stop at just the tree when there's so much more room to fly? Zooooom-

AAAAAHHH! PAIN! Ow ow ow ow ow paaaaaaain, please don't hurt me please don't hurt me please don't hurt me...!

"I said to the TREE! And then BACK!"

Tree! Back! Tree then back, went to the tree and then kept going, bad Robin, bad bird, back back back back back, _ow_ , hurts so much, don't hurt me more, don't hurt me...!

"Bar!"

BAR MEANS STOP. Stop. Good bird, good stop, don't hurt me! Please don't hurt me!

"Down!"

DOWN.

"Up!"

UP, up, how much up?! Up on knees, up on feet, up higher?! Want to go higher, can't, can't, wings don't work!

"Haha, okay. Good boy."

FOOD! Seed seed seed, crunch crunch crunch, good boy don't hurt me, don't hurt good boy... Heeeeee, soft hand on hair feels good, gentle. Be nice to me, love me.

"Okay, okay, get off. Now. Robin! Fly to the tree and back!"

Fly to the TREE! Fly _BACK_! Fly to tree and _back_ , ow ow still hurts but won't hurt more if the tree and then BACK, good boy!

"Theeeere you go, much better."

FOOD! Petting!

"All right, let's try this: Robin! Bite!"

GNAAAARGGHH, GNAW GNAW GNAW, good boy, good bite, pet gentle...!

o.o.o.o.o

Dick woke up with a fresh headache and horribly stiff cheeks - he couldn't get his lips to completely close, and the best he could do only lasted while he was concentrating. _'Damn you!'_

His back burned with pain from whip wounds not allowed to rest, and his skin was inflamed from the acid spray he must have been punished with while he'd been drugged. _'What did he do to me...'_ He stared at his green hair and seethed. _'He's breaking me. He's trying to make me his pet for real.'_ He couldn't let that happen, yet he didn't know how to stop it... While his mind was infected by the drug, he felt so eager to please, so instinctive. It was hard to even remember to fight, or to remember why it was important if he did. _'I can't let him destroy me...!'_

o.o.o.o.o

It had been an endless week - as close as he could figure - of headaches and training. To pass the time when he lay in the dark, aching, locked in his cage, he worked on his bird language and experimented with how slowly and carefully he had to move in order not to jingle.

At one point, Dick realized that he'd spent more time being drugged than not, and his lucid times were starting to get slightly fuzzy - he couldn't quite remember his parents' actual names, just 'Mom' and 'Dad' and...something with a G...G, Grayson. _Grayson_ , couldn't forget his own friggin' family's name. When he practiced his bird language, there were some words he couldn't quite remember, just the images or concepts of them. _'If he turns my brain into soup, it won't matter whether I'm drugged or not, I won't be myself anymore.'_

o.o.o.o.o

Dick's heart nearly stopped with shock. Batman had _forgotten to lock the cage_.

He stared, trembling, at the birdcage door that was now hanging open. He was in the kitchen again, so he wasn't far off the ground, an easy drop. He just needed to...emerge carefully enough to keep the bells from sounding an alarm...

It took him a long, long time, and the only reason he didn't go out of his mind with terror was because he could hear that awful distant screaming, which he was pretty sure meant that Batman was...'busy'...with someone...in the cave. He couldn't allow himself to think of the suffering of whoever that was; all it meant was that Batman was occupied, and Dick couldn't, shouldn't, _wouldn't_ panic unless the screaming stopped.

The bells did clink, just a tiny bit, when he landed, but the drop was as careful as possible, and when he paused, listening hard, ready to scramble back in and pretend he had just gotten restless in his cage, all he heard was screaming. Well, wailing, now. _'Don't think. Don't think. At least they'll probably be dead by morning, but you'll still be alive to torture if you don't GO, NOW.'_

He crept painstakingly across the kitchen, to the mud room and then the garage, where he hesitated. Still no vehicle keys, and he didn't know if he should risk the back yard again, or try his luck with the front. _'He only caught me last time because he was probably watching for me to escape, testing me.'_ He wouldn't be expecting it now, and the back continued to hold the advantages over the front, so Dick crept out.

No one from the house could possibly hear the jingling of bells once he'd cleared the gardens, so that's when he started to run. Unlike the controlled jog of before, he ran flat-out, desperate, needing to escape. He glanced at the sky, trying to gauge where the ravine was. At this point, he wasn't sure whether he intended to look for a way to climb down into it or throw himself into it, but either way, if he could find that thick stand of trees, he'd be able to elude capture. He'd only been caught last time because the monster had seen him go in there and had known where to be to catch him on the other side.

o.o.o.o.o

[Dick is caught and punished again.] Immediately afterward, he was drugged and taken out to the city for the first time, the whole experience a dizzying whirl of laughter and agony and orders and meat.

When he came back to himself, [. . .]

"Every time you run, it'll get worse. Next time, it'll be a child I sic you on."

Dick cried.

o.o.o.o.o

While Dick was still healing, he was dragged down to the cave and strapped to the table. It was different this time, though - beside the table was a terrified dentist with a bomb collar, and the drug Dick was injected with made him unconscious instead of laughter-crazed. When he woke up, his mouth was sore and bleeding from multiple small cuts, because his teeth had been turned into _fangs_ and he hurt himself almost every time he moved. It took days of practice to get used to the way he now had to avoid drawing blood every time he spoke or chewed.

He never saw the dentist again.

o.o.o.o.o

[. . .]

To be continued...

 _ **In the Birdcage**_ **, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Part I: The Boy Who Chirps - Chapter 9 (rough draft)**

Going out, going out, going oooouuut~! Hop, hop, good boy, follow the chain, CAR! Ooohhh, black black black black _heeheehee_ trees look so blurry-no-trees because we go FAST!

Awwww...pretty stars moon, hello, moon, hello~!

"Sit down, Robin."

Sit down! Sit down! Good boy!

STOP lurch ha ha ha! Lemme out lemme out lemme out THANK YOOOUUU for letting me out! Bouncy look look look chain-tug oops, can look at touch bite anything~ except when chain tugs, then go to Master!

Rumbly man voices, boring; look, a little bug, a little brown buggie with feelers going ewie-ewie-ewie, so cute~! Ha ha ha, I wil eat-

"Robin! Bite!"

MASTER'S POINTING! BITE BITE ATTACK RAAAAWWWRRRR!

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Hee hee hee, screaming screaming but teeth chew on MEAT until it stops. Good boy? Good bird?

"Good job, Robin. Bar."

STOP. Bar means stop!

Master looking at bleeding-man, Master petting, ooohhh, I like being petted. "Good boy."

Good boy!

"All right, then; onwards!"

Onwards~!

o.o.o.o.o

 _Clink_

Dick stared. The Batman had fallen asleep, reading a book out here on the terrace, and now the chain leash had dropped from his hand.

Dick couldn't take his eyes away from that end of the leash for a long time. If he could get out of eyesight before the man woke up, he could pick up the chain, sneak away, and disappear into the woods.

...

He could. But he would be caught. And punished.

 _"Every time you run, it'll get worse. Next time, it'll be a child I sic you on."_

Dick knew he had killed people, while on that awful drug. He'd sunk his horrible fangs into them and ripped[. . .]. The memories from those times were fragmented and fuzzy, but from what he could tell, he'd only killed adults so far.

He stared longingly off into the yard. Before he could make a decision, he nearly jumped out of his skin and whimpered fearfully when his captor snorted and turned onto his side, facing the house. Even if he were to open his eyes, he wouldn't see if Dick fled very quietly.

 _'Don't do it,'_ Dick told himself silently. _'Don't do it.'_

After an anxious moment, the man stirred again and grumbled, then sat up. "C'mon, Robbie, let's go take a real nap." After a few steps, he complained, "Why are you so _jingly_? It's giving me a headache!" and, to Dick's astonishment, pulled all the bells off and flung them aside.

The boy followed obediently, marveling at the blessed silence of his movements and trying not to stare when the Batman didn't bother to close the door when they went through it, just trudged up to the dusty master suite and flung himself onto the bed.

Dick stared. [. . .] Hadn't caged him and still hadn't secured his leash, had left the door open, with Damian training in the cave because that's what the small screen on the bedside table showed him doing.

 _'Don't do it.'_

Dick wandered out of the bedroom because he could not bear being close to his captor if he could help it. He went downstairs and stared at that open door, with the woods green and shadowy beyond. Batman had only just lay down. Dick had seen him. Even if he only napped for twenty minutes, Dick could still get into the shelter of the trees.

He would still be caught, though, because the man was a demon who always knew what Dick had done and where he had gone. He would be caught, and he knew he wouldn't be able to bear the punishment this time. So he crept into the birdcage in the kitchen and pulled the door shut and curled up to sleep.

He awoke panicking because hands were pulling him out of the cage again, but he wasn't struck. Hands held him still but not cruelly, caressed him innocently. "What a good boy you are, sweet bird. I'm so proud of you."

 _'It_ _was_ _a test,'_ Dick realized, his heart sinking. _'He left the way open for me on purpose, to see if I would try to escape again or not.'_

He was not hurt or drugged the rest of that day and night. He was fed proper food, praised, even given normal clothing to wear that he was allowed to change into himself. Even though it was a relief, he knew what he was being rewarded for, and he hated himself for it. He hated his captor more, though. _'Someday,'_ he thought, smiling up at the demon man. _'I will pretend to be your sweet, obedient pet, but someday, you'll make a mistake, and then I'll be able to kill myself before you can stop me.'_

"I love you so much, sweet bird," the Batman crooned.

o.o.o.o.o

"Eat it."

"No," Dick sobbed, "no, please, no, no...!" This was the first time since Becca that he was ordered to eat human flesh when not drugged, and he couldn't make himself do it. He couldn't.

"Eat it, or you'll eat nothing for a week."

Hope leaped in Dick's chest, but he knew better than to show it. "No, please! Please, just, I'll eat, I can eat dog meat, or, or cat meat, just, please...don't make me eat this...!"

He was locked in the birdcage with no food at all, and with a bit of water only provided every other day.

o.o.o.o.o

On the fourth day, he lay still in his cage, wishing he would be allowed to die. He'd tried to spill out the water so he could die from dehydration, but then water had been literally forced down his throat, so he now drank what was offered.

He was so tired.

 _'I wish I was a real bird.'_ He wouldn't know what he was missing. He'd be happy with birdseed and any kind of covering for his body, no matter what the style. He wouldn't remember his parents, and maybe he could even fly for real. _'I need to be a real bird.'_

So, over the next several days of his punishment, he turned himself into a bird. Birds did not name themselves, so he had no name, only what his owner called him. He didn't have soft lips or teeth, he had a beak. He didn't have arms, he had wings; the coverings on his body were feathers, not clothes. He had talons instead of toes. He voiced nothing but birdsong.

 _"Sad, sad, want to get out of the cage, fly away, fly free..."_

o.o.o.o.o

Di- The bird did not know how long he had been punished, but at last there came a day when the cage was unlocked, and he was brought out. He crooned in relief and drank the water he was given, dipping it up in his mouth like his fellow birds did.

"Hmmm. Something's different today."

The bird chirred.

"Oh well. To the Batcave, Robin!"

The bird Laughed, and he flew to the city with his master, and he ate meat, and Master was pleased.

o.o.o.o.o

Always Laughing! Always Laughing! Always Laughing! I will laugh foreverrrrr~! XD

o.o.o.o.o

Morning!

Hello sun~ hello sun~ I love yoooouuu-!

 _crash!_

"Cut out that racket!"

Oops oops oops, Master threw a thing! Master is angry at this bird! Ssshh, birdie, sssshhh, be quiet, Master is sleeping. Creep creep creep down, alone? Alone? Yes! Hello sun~ hello sun~ I love yoooouuu~! ^_^

Morning-singing finished now; food? Food? Looking looking lookiiiing~ OOH what's this? Food? _crunch_ OW, hurts beak! Owie!

"Haha. Gotta thaw it out, first, sweet bird."

Hello, Master! Please give me food! " _crow_!" Master likes this sound very much best. This good bird is good and will get food for being a good bird. " _crow_!"

"Yes, yes, hold on."

Humming humming waaaaiiting, so bored! Tweety-tweet-tweet-tweet-tweety-tweety-tweeeee...

 _ding!_

OOH! MEAT IS FINISHED! MEAT IS WARM!

"Here ya go, Robin."

YUM YUM FOOD FOR MY TUMMY. _Sink_ in riiiiiip, _mm_ , gulp gulp gulp! Good food! Yummy!

"Good bird. You're such a good bird, Robin."

Ooooohhh, petting by Master. Master hand so gentle, don't hurt me~!

"Yes, yes, I love you, too. Come on, sweet bird, time to play."

Time to play! Time to play~!

o.o.o.o.o

 _Hello, Grandpa! Hello hello hello! Do not look sad, I love you, see?_

 _"Oh, young master..."_

 _I said don't be sad! Hmmm... Ooh! Look, look, I will do a trick for you! (flip~) Yaaaayyy, good bird!_

 _"Most impressive, young master."_

 _Why do you smile when you are still so sad? Why are you so sad, Grandpa? I love you!_

 _"Oh, young master...oh, you dear, sweet child, I would give my life to save you..."_

 _Don't cry! I love you! But keep cuddling, this is good cuddling._

o.o.o.o.o

The Batman Who Laughs was sitting on the couch - or, lying, rather, since he was slumped down so low, his legs carelessly splayed. He scowled at the TV as his bird twittered quietly and used curved, stiff fingers to play with a cluster of colorful marbles. "Hmmm. Come here, Robin."

The bird obeyed instantly, moving toward the couch in a low, hunched-over posture and attempting to climb onto his master.

"Oof, no!" He pushed the bird off, then, just for something to do, grabbed him and started hitting him. The bird cawed in distress and squirmed, but knew better than to try to get away.

After a minute, Laughs stopped. He stared down at his captive, who lay still and crooned up at him plaintively. He let go. [. . .] the bird burst into tears...and didn't fight. Just lay there, crying.

Laughs sat back on his heels, frustrated about the lingering feeling of dissatisfaction. "I changed my mind. [. . .]"

No response. Just more crying. "Shut up!"

The slap silenced him. The bird lay there as if dead, even though it had just been one blow, not particularly forceful, not even any blood drawn.

"Ugh." Laughs flopped back onto the couch, then started flipping through channels again. Everything on TV sucked, so he hurled the remote at the screen. He looked down and found the bird crawling on him, so he shoved him back down. "Get off me!"

"Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee!"

"UGH. Let's go for a walk." He grabbed the leash and dragged, but they'd barely crossed the terrace before Laughs came to a stop. The bird scrambled and finally managed to catch up, panting a little.

Laughs stared. He was so frickin' BORED. "Take off your clothes," he ordered on a whim.

The bird immediately stripped down until he wore nothing but the collar around his neck. He crouched there, grinning that lovely empty grin, all the scars on his little stark-white body on proud display.

"Dammit!" He hurled the chain away and stalked back inside. "I _love_ children, I'm not supposed to get _bored_ of them so _quickly_ -" He paused. "'Children.'" He slapped his forehead. "Oh, what a dummy! Should have realized it sooner."

o.o.o.o.o

Master didn't come back, and didn't come back, so the bird finally pulled his feathers on again and crept under a bush where he could watch bugs and maybe sleep.

Long long. Long long. It was dark, and the bird looked out of the bush and it was almost night already, he was surprised. He wandered back into the house, wondering if Master would feed him tonight.

No Master. No Damian. Just shadows, and bugs. No food in the food room or in any of the cold things, so he went back to see if he could catch some of the bugs to eat.

 _Sound_. That sound. He knew that sound, it was a bad sound. Different from the Screaming, that was a bad sound too; this was worse. Little. Little ones, small creatures making that sound. Not like mice or squirrels; small creatures like _him_. Used to be.

He _listened_. He followed, and there in the cave-

Cages, not the bird's-

Two of them. Terrified eyes, shouting mouths, high voices filled with fear. Trapped and covered with Robin feathers, two new pets for Master to torture and starve and feed bad meat to and make Laugh-

The bird screamed.

To be continued...


	8. Part 10

_**In the Birdcage**_ **, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Part II: The Boy Who Caws & The Girl Who Trills - Chapter 10 (rough draft)**

A/N: I realized, after finishing John's arc, that I should have stuck with my plan of censoring as I draft, rather than writing out the whole thing and only censoring before posting. There are some things that I should not have written out in real-time at all, even if I was the only person who read them. I tried to do better starting with this chapter. I don't know if you guys will notice a difference, but I'm hoping it will reduce those ugly, dirty feelings for me. Might also help us get through this fic faster if I'm focusing more on the kids and not wasting time and words writing BWL's sicko stuff.

More cussing than usual in this chapter, because Jason. *wince*

o.o.o

Jason didn't know which was stronger, the grief or the rage.

When Mom hadn't come home in days, he'd gone out looking for her, and finally found her slumped in an abandoned building, surrounded by trash, used drug paraphernalia, and a few sleeping bodies. He thought she'd been sleeping, too, but then he realized she wasn't breathing. So he'd rushed all the way to the corner store run by the man who sometimes slipped him food that was too old to sell, and called the police, and then run back, but it had been half an hour and the cops _weren't gonna show_. Because no one in this city gave a fuck about those who needed help most.

Jason clung to his mother's hand, crying, trying to stop so he could hit something, unable to because his mama was _dead_. She wasn't going to wake up from this, she was never going to be lucid again, she would never gaze at him even with hazy, uncomprehending eyes, she would never cook for him or sing to him or read books to him or tell him how much she loved him. He no longer had anything to protect, care for, or worry about except himself, because his mom was _gone_.

"Why couldn't you have done it at home...why couldn't you be close enough for me to find you in time...?"

Footsteps. Jason spun around, intending to scream at the police for being incompetent bastards, but paused when he realized it was just another homeless person. The man shuffled up to them, stopped before he got too close for comfort, and peered at the dead woman on the floor. Then he looked at Jason. "'M sorry, son."

"You didn't know her," Jason snarled. "You don't care, you don't even- Get the fuck out! There aren't any drugs left, and you CAN'T have her!" He'd be damned if he'd let his mother fall prey to harvesters or necrophiles or whatever other sick freaks might have any use for a corpse.

"Just sayin'. Know it's tough, losin' yer ma."

"I'll manage," Jason growled, even though he wouldn't, he wouldn't. He'd survive, his body would fight on, but the few bits of light that remained in his life had died along with his mother.

"Sure, sure. Best give her a proper send-off, eh? Don't wanna let any rats get at 'er."

Jason was getting a bad feeling. The only reason he hadn't run off already was because he couldn't leave Mom, but he really, really did not want to be near this person...this total stranger in Crime Alley, which meant he was an outsider, which almost never meant anything good.

Jason stood to his full height and planted his feet and lowered his head like a bull, brandishing the length of broken wood he'd snagged from the floor as he rose. "Get lost, freak. You either walk away or I _beat_ you away."

"Now, now." The hoarse, uncouth drawl was gone, and something about the man's real voice, clearer with a slight upper-crust accent and an insidious touch of humor, sent chills down Jason's spine. "No need to get your hackles up when I'm only trying to help a child in need."

Jason bellowed and charged, but the man disarmed him in a second and threw him to the ground, stomping on his back before Jason could catch his breath. The boot stayed planted, pinning Jason to the floor, and the man leisurely started rifling through his jacket. "I have this compound I use, incinerates things without a lot of mess or fuss. Handy for destroying evidence or 'tidying up' crime scenes. I always keep a bit on me..." He scattered some sort of powder over the body of Catherine Todd.

"Don't touch her!" Jason screamed. "Get away from her, you BASTARD, get off of me!" He struggled until a lit match fell, then gasped when the powder instantly ignited. "NO! NO!"

The man laughed as she burned, and then Jason was petrified, because he knew that laugh. It was Joker's laugh. _'But Joker's dead! Batman killed him!'_ Yet this was Gotham, the very worst pit in a world filled with superhumans and magic and weirdness; he shouldn't even be surprised to hear the laugh of a dead man, the worst of the worst of Gotham's criminals, coming out of someone's mouth.

"FIRE!" Jason screamed, because in Crime Alley, no one would answer a call for help; and besides, there _was_ a fire, starting to lick its way across the debris on the floor, closer to the unconscious addicts. "IT'S BURNING! FIRE!"

He fought fiercely, but couldn't stop the man from picking him up, starting to carry him away, then pausing to tie him up painfully tightly when he made himself difficult to hold on to. He didn't bother with a gag, but no one responded to Jason's screams, anyway, and one of his nightmares was fulfilled when he was thrown into the back of a van and carted off to an unknown destination.

o.o.o.o.o

Carrie scuffed her soles as she walked home from school, pouting. The boys hadn't let her play soccer with them again, so she'd dumped their backpacks in the girls' restroom toilets in retaliation, and their reactions had been funny but it was still so ANNOYING that they wouldn't let her play. _'They're jealous. They know you're better than them and the pricks can't stand it. I just-'_

She shied away in alarm when a vehicle pulled up near her. There was the sound of a door slamming, and she was already backing away when the driver ambled up to her. "Need a ride?"

She stared at him. The guy was dressed like a homeless person, but he had the voice of a socialite and the body language of a successful businessman. His face looked odd, almost painted, like he had a lot of makeup on.

There were muffled sounds of a child yelling in the back of the vehicle.

"No," she said, too stunned with disbelief to be articulate yet.

"Come on into my van, little girl, I've got candy," he laughed.

Dread curled in Carrie's gut. He wasn't even _hiding_ the fact that he was a child predator. "I'm calling the police!" she said, backing away further.

She had only just turned to run when he caught her. She screamed at the top of her lungs and fought like a wildcat, but then he hit her head in a way that made her dizzy, and she could barely move when he threw her into the van and drove away.

Still dazed, she struggled to raise her head, and locked eyes with the furious, terrified kid already back here. He'd been tied up, and was staring at her with a look of despair that mirrored how she felt.

"Gimme...gimme a minute," she panted. She dug her pocketknife out of her shorts and dragged herself closer so she could work on cutting the boy loose.

"I'm gonna _kill_ this fucking pedo!" the boy raged. "Lemme borrow your knife once I'm loose."

"My knife, can't have it," she said, sawing away. "How'd he get you?"

"Bastard burned my mom... She fucking _died_ , he strolled up acting all sympathetic, I tried to beat him off but he _burned_ her! Burned my mom and all the crackheads she-" His voice broke. "He probably killed them all. We gotta kill him before he has us where he wants us. Like, _soon_ as the doors open, before he can get us into his fucking house, we gotta double-team 'im."

"Don't panic, we will."

"I'm not panicking!"

They argued until the van finally stopped, much later. The drive had been so long that Carrie figured that they were either in the suburbs on the edge of town or maybe even out of town altogther, some shack in the woods like the stereotypical pedophile this freak was.

"On my mark," Jason whispered, the two of them crouching on either side of the doors.

"On _my_ mark."

"You got the knife, so I get to signal!"

"Fine!"

They almost missed their moment, but managed to stop arguing just in time to hurl themselves at their captor when the doors opened. [He laughs and beats them back easily, stabs Carrie non-lethally with her own knife, drags them to the cave, strips them naked, stops Carrie's bleeding, dresses them in Robin costumes, and hangs them in birdcages before leaving them alone in the dark.]

It was silent for a long time. It might have been from shock; when Jason realized this, he tried to shake it off and call over to her, "Carrie. The fucking Batman is a pedo."

"He's Bruce Wayne," came the faint reply.

"What?"

"This is _Wayne Manor_. Didn't you notice? They show it on TV sometimes."

"Good for you, you have a TV," Jason said bitterly. Even when he had the opportunity to watch anything, he usually had more pressing priorities or different preferred forms of entertainment. Any knowledge he had of the world outside Crime Alley was from hearsay and the occasional newspapers he came across as litter or garbage. Then he realized, "Bruce Wayne is the Batman. And a pedo. ...Fuck."

They were silent again. Jason tried to pull off the stupid mask, but it was glued on so tightly that it _hurt_. He couldn't get it off even after he ripped off the gloves and shoved them out through the bars of the cage.

"No one's going to hear us if we call for help, are they," Carrie finally said.

"No one would come even if they did hear us," Jason grumbled. After some more fruitless prying at the mask, he said, "Who's that third cage for?"

Carrie swore softly.

Jason kept talking, he couldn't stand the silence anymore. "What's with these fucking stupid outfits?" He ripped off the cape and almost sent it after the gloves, but managed to catch it in time when he remembered that he might need any pitiful warmth it offered. It was as if his body had been heated by anger all this time, because as soon as that thought occurred to him, he at last felt the chill of the cave.

He carefully pulled the cape back in and stared down at himself, the freaking scaly panties he'd been forced into and the ridiculous boots, and _nothing_ between the two. "He got a fucking leg fetish or what? What the _hell_ , this is bullshit." He wondered, wanting to cry, what Wayne was waiting for, why he hadn't raped or trafficked or started renting them out yet, dreading how awful it was going to be when he did. " _Fuck_ you, Wayne! Fuck you and your fucking pedo friends and your bat shit, you LIAR, 'protect the city' one night and kidnap kids the next, you fucking SICKO...!"

"I'm going to miss Nationals," Carrie realized, then thought of all the other ways her capture and wounding would affect her gymnastics. She started shouting vengefully right along with Jason.

A scream frightened them both. Carrie jerked and then gasped in the resulting pain; Jason's cage bounced wildly as he scrambled to look. He could barely see in the dark, but there seemed to be a person below, someone who wasn't Batman. "Who's there?!"

There was an explosion of twittering, like it was an actual bird down there.

"Who the FUCK are you?!" Jason shrieked, completely creeped out.

There were sounds of running and scrambling, light footsteps and a weird gait. _'A kid?'_ Jason wondered. The high-pitched scream and the size matched, and the empty third cage hanging beside his, but he had no explanation for the bird noises or the fact that a pedophile would just let one of his victims wander unattended around the freaking Batcave.

There was a sudden wide glow as the giant computer came to life. The kid-shaped figure near it, dressed in the same fetish costume Jason and Carrie were, darted to a lever and started struggling with it. Jason felt his cage jolt a few times, but nothing else happened.

The kid gave up and crept close again, almost directly under the cages but far enough back that he could look up and meet their eyes. He made another bird noise, long and sad.

"You gotta help us get out of here, bird kid! You know where the keys are? Go find the keys and bring 'em!"

No response. The kid just continued to stare up at Jason with that awful tragic look.

"KEYS, idiot! Find the keys!"

"He's not going to help us if we're mean to him," Carrie pointed out.

Jason made an effort to gentle his voice. "Do you know where the keys are? The keys to these cages? Can you bring 'em here? ...Please?"

The bird kid started to cry.

"No, don't cry! Look for keys!"

He got nothing but unhappy twittering for his trouble.

To be continued...


End file.
